Change of Luck
by otherhawk
Summary: Just because he has more choices doesn't mean there's no price. Danny's Luck verse
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Yes, yes, new story, but this one should only be about six or seven chapters long. And three and a half of them are written already, so you shouldn't need to worry about being kept in suspense for _too _long at any point...I hope.**

**A/N2: This is set in 'Danny's Luck' verse and will make very little sense without first having read that. The rest of the stories in the verse can be found in my 'Snippets and Drabbles' story, chapters 33 (Danny's Luck) 37 (Unlikely) and 39 (Descended). Really, I think only 'Danny's Luck' is a _necessary _read.**

**A/N3: InSilva thought of the title and has read this first and offered unfathomable encouragement, and the original idea was heavily inspired by 'Relationship Matters' anyway. So to say I thank her would be a vast understatement.**

* * *

Thirty nine hours.

Thirty nine hours of pain and suffering and waiting.

Danny was waiting for Tess to die in this narrow hospital room and nothing in his life had prepared him for that.

Rusty had held his hand for the whole thirty nine hours, and Danny thought that maybe if Rusty let him go, even for a second, the whole world would come to a crashing end.

The doctors and nurses were leaving them alone. There was nothing more to be done. All they could do was wait. There was no chance that she would wake up. There was nothing left _to_ wake up.

Nothing left to wake up...

Danny felt empty inside. Felt like someone had reached inside him and torn out his heart. This didn't feel real. Didn't feel possible.

Tess' hand was heavy in his and he couldn't stop hoping that she would squeeze his fingers. Just the slightest hint, the smallest sign that she was alive, that she knew he was here.

He'd always been the optimist. Always the one who saw the brightside. Always the one with the smile and the plan and the hope.

There was no hope here. No last minute chances. No nothing.

Thirty nine hours.

Danny's world ended tonight.

* * *

He had to time it carefully.

Danny couldn't suspect anything. Danny couldn't even catch a glimpse of what he was thinking because this wasn't a choice he _ever _wanted Danny to face.

Danny was barely awake right now. Certainly barely functioning. Clinging on to Tess' hand like grim life. Rusty touched his shoulder briefly and Danny didn't look round.

"Hey," he said softly, nodding towards the bathroom door. "I'll just...I'll be back in a moment, okay."

Danny nodded jerkily his eyes fixed on Tess' face, trapped in a place of withered hope.

Rusty stood up and hurried into the bathroom, his hand clenched briefly around the doorhandle, knuckles white. If he closed the door, Danny might realise something was wrong. Not like Rusty should want to be out of Danny's sight, in the circumstances. But the sink was behind the door and the mirror hung above it, and he could step in there, for a moment, without Danny noticing.

Only for a moment.

Just like he promised, only a moment.

But, of course, a moment was all he needed.

For a second of realtime he looked at his reflection. Met the eyes of the man he'd been for the past twenty three years and wondered if this was really what he wanted to do.

His reflection grinned wearily back at him.

Right. There was no question.

Tess was dying.

Right in front of his eyes, Tess was dying and Rusty knew that Danny was dying right along with her.

Danny loved Tess more than life itself. Rusty _knew _that. It had been the purest chance that they'd ever met in the first place and everything they'd gone through since...

He couldn't bear to see the look on Danny's face.

And Danny _had _asked him for help. Hell, Danny was still pleading, maybe not out loud, but in every other way. From the moment they'd got the phone call, heard about the accident, every time Danny had looked at him he'd been looking at more than just his best friend. He'd been looking at everything else Rusty was, begging the power Rusty represented to save Tess, demanding all the special treatment he'd never even _dream _of asking for himself.

And there was the irony of course.

If it had been Danny, or Saul, or Bash, hell if it had been any of their friends, he might've been able to do something. He would've had influence at least. Opportunities. _Something. _But Tess...she didn't live in his world. She didn't play the games of chance and fortune and he could do _nothing._

He was just as helpless as Danny.

And as Danny read that agonised knowledge in his eyes, it killed them both.

There was nothing he could do.

There was nothing _he _could do.

But maybe...just maybe...

He didn't even need to look at Danny to know. Numb agony. Exhausted bewilderment. Pain and devastation and loss.

If there was any chance at all, he had to take it. No question.

Thing was, there'd be a price to pay. There was always a price to pay.

And that led him to the inescapable truth. Danny could not know.

He reached out a hand and touched the mirror gently and the surface rippled beneath his fingertips.

All he had was a moment. But a moment of realtime was an eternity to play Alice.

His jaw set, he slipped inside the mirror.

* * *

Wasn't hard to find where he needed to be. He might have been living as a human for a long time, but that didn't mean he'd forgotten anything. Another time and maybe he would've taken a moment to enjoy the feeling of everywhere - like stretching after being crammed in a small space for decades longer than he'd thought - but he was in a hurry and with his next breath he put his foot on what pretended to be solid ground.

The mist was thick and impassible. It tasted like death and decay. In the distance he could hear voices whispering, indistinguishable moans of pain and hatred and suffering.

All remarkably overdone.

Seemed safe to assume they knew he was here.

He leaned back against a convenient streetlight that just happened to materialise and waited, his smile amused and unconcerned and, hopefully, extremely annoying.

Must have been. At any rate, he didn't need to wait long.

Whispers and echoes in the mist, coming from all around him.

"It has been a long time."

"Time."

"Long time."

He smiled some more. Waited some more.

"After Salzburg."

"You have a lot of nerve."

"Show your face."

"Salzburg."

"Nerve."

"To show your."

"Show your face."

"You must be."

"_Desperate."_

He stood up straight. "I came here for help."

Laughter. And the voices coalesced into one figure, standing directly in front of him, overbrimming with anger and derision and hatred.

"Anyone ever tell you it's bad luck to hold a grudge for more than a century?" he asked mildly.

The figure just stared at him.

There was still time to walk away. He wasn't committed to anything yet. And seemed likely the price was going to be even higher than he'd imagined.

He grinned. "So how would you like to make me a deal?"

* * *

Rusty walked out of the bathroom a moment later.

Danny was still holding Tess' hand, but Danny was asleep. For the first time in forty hours, Danny was asleep. And that was heartbreak and relief all at once and Rusty was just a little too cowardly to wake him up.

"I don't have much time. I know you can't hear me, not really, but I couldn't leave without saying..." He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. "You're not going to remember this when you wake up. When you wake up, all of the last few days...Tess...it's all going to be just a bad dream. The fucking Dallas option. 's a cliche, but it's the best I can do."

He sighed and sat down on the very edge of the bed, so close and so far, and Danny sighed in his sleep, reaching out, begging for the comfort, for the reassurance, protection...for the only person he had left.

There was part of Rusty that was busy wishing Danny would wake up.

There was another part of him that was busy making sure he wouldn't.

After all, this wasn't the path that Danny would have chosen for them.

"Everything's going to change," he told Danny softly. "And even though you're not gonna remember this...even though you can't hear me...I want you to know that I'm _sorry. _I really am. I know this isn't what you want." His eyes flickered to Tess. "But I know you don't want what happens either. So I made the deal. Everyone lives, Danny. Everyone lives."

He leaned forwards, his face briefly buried in Danny's shoulder, and for a second his shoulders shook, for a second his fingers were twisted in Danny's shirt, holding on as tight as he could, holding on like the world might just end if he let go. But when he stood up his eyes were dry and his face was calm.

"I always thought we'd have more time, you and me. Deep down, I suppose I always thought we'd have forever. I've been around for such a long time, Danny. Such a very long time, and I've never met anyone like you. There's never _been_ anyone like you. You're...you make me feel...you look at me and you know what I am and you know _who_ I am and I feel like that's enough. And the time we've had...all the time. And do you know something? I don't regret a second."

He bent over and kissed Danny, soft and brief and tender and Danny sighed and stirred in his sleep and Rusty held his breath for a long moment of hope and dread. But Danny didn't wake.

He walked towards the door. "Goodnight, Danny."

The world breathed.

Rusty vanished.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Further thanks to InSilva. Mostly cos I can't say it often enough.**

**A/N2: J Milton Hayes wrote 'The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God'. I, therefore, did not. **

**A/N3: Warnings for...strangeness. No, really, I mean it.**

* * *

The doctors had insisted on keeping Tess in hospital overnight for observation, and Danny had been happy to go along with that. He'd rather they were too careful, after all, particularly since he'd _seen _what was left of the car after the accident. A twisted hunk of concertinaed metal. The fact that Tess had come out of it with nothing more than scrapes and bruises was a miracle of luck.

Unsurprisingly he'd passed an uneasy night in the hospital. Nothing worse than being left alone, waiting for news, nothing to do but sit tight and hope. Enough to make him wish that there was someone he could call.

Wasn't just that though. There'd been dreams. Dreams he didn't remember now, but he'd woken with a start of loss and panic and he'd held Tess tightly, fighting to convince himself that she was alive and well.

She was. And now she was eying the wheelchair the nurse had brought with an air of deep dissatisfaction.

"I don't see why I can't just walk," she complained.

"If you prefer, I can carry you?" Danny suggested mildly and inside he frowned. He'd made that offer – threat? – before, he knew he had. Only he couldn't figure out when and to who. Not to Tess, surely, she'd never been hurt and in hospital, not for as long as he'd known her. For a second he wondered about girlfriends he'd had _before _Tess, but he couldn't think of any specific times, and it didn't feel right. Huh. Must just be the déjà vu thing.

Tess sighed. "I suppose I'll take the wheelchair," she agreed, with somewhat ill grace, and Danny couldn't say why he was surprised that she'd given in so easily.

He smiled and kissed her before helping her into the chair and getting her settled. His fear of losing her was more than enough to account for any nagging feelings of wrongness. He had every intention of spoiling Tess rotten over the next few weeks, and he was certain everything would be back to normal soon.

* * *

There was something missing from Danny's life and it was driving him out of his mind.

He didn't know what it was. Just a feeling that had crept up on him over the past six months. Like he'd forgotten something. Something huge and important.

And that was crazy. Nothing had changed in that time. Life went on, just the same as always. He lived in comfortable semi-retirement with Tess, meeting up with his friends just often enough. Reuben, Saul, Frank and Linus, most often. All of them at the end of a phonecall and life was good.

Everything was just as it should be and everything was terribly wrong.

It was little things that were bothering him.

Little thoughts that went unfinished.

Questions that didn't have an answer.

(_Why was there always Hersheys chocolate in the cupboard, when neither he nor Tess liked it?_)

Stories that didn't quite go the way they were supposed to.

(_He remembered the Symington job and he remembered the fire and the door that wouldn't open and he didn't know why he was alive._)

Memories that maybe didn't add up.

(_He'd met Saul a very long time ago. He just didn't remember how._)

Most of all it was the feeling he got every time he was on his own, the feeling he got when he met his eyes in the mirror, the feeling that woke him up in a cold sweat at three o'clock in the morning. The feeling that a piece of him was missing, the feeling that he was alone.

(_I always thought we'd have more time, you and me. Deep down I always thought we'd have forever._)

Little things though. Jokes that Tess didn't get. References that passed over her head. And all the many, wonderful moments they shared daily didn't seem like quite enough when it felt like there'd once been even more.

Impossible that Tess wouldn't notice. Impossible that she wouldn't feel hurt, betrayed even. The thought that she wasn't enough for him...of course it was going to be painful. And she didn't understand and he couldn't explained.

It started out with the little things. He was frustrated with every thought shared that didn't quite hit the mark. She was upset every time he looked at her and she could see the disappointment in his eyes.

Frustration and disappointment, hurt and upset. Angry arguments and painful, awkward silences, and in the end Danny was the one who suggested the separation, but he was hoping, praying to any luck him might have, that she'd say no.

She didn't.

* * *

It sometimes bothered Danny how much he hated working alone. After all, he'd worked alone for most of his life. He should be used to it. And still it never felt quite natural. Felt like he was working blind, like he was always waiting for another voice to cut into his thoughts, always waiting for the other side of the conversation.

If he tried to think about it logically he guessed that maybe it was just that the last few years, ever since the Benedict job, he'd mostly been working as part of a team. He'd got used to having good people beside him, that was all. People he could trust just as easy as breathing. People who lived in the same world as him.

"And that makes ten. Ten ought to do it, don't you think?"

He shook his head, trying to clear it.

He remembered saying the words. And ten had done it. Ten had done it perfectly, just like he'd said.

Only thing was, he didn't know who he'd said it to.

These days it just felt like nothing in his life quite made sense.

He'd lost Tess.

(_He'd lost..._)

There were holes in his mind that he couldn't think about and couldn't leave alone.

His life was falling apart and the only thing to do was to try and bury himself in work.

That was where Sebastian Charleston came in.

Sebastian Charleston was the perfect mark in many respects – obnoxious capricious and exceptionally wealthy. He lived in a citadel of money and everyone else was beneath him and he wasn't afraid to let them know it. And while he wasn't violent _himself, _it was only because he had people to do it for him.

Vince Glen, Sebastian's paid shadow, who had once broken a beggar's knees with a nightstick because he'd spat on Sebastian's shoes. Vince Glen who had publicly declared that _no one _could steal from his employer.

Danny had to figure it would be fun to prove him wrong.

He had a target in mind. A little gold statue with emerald eyes, proudly looted at the height of British colonialism. Sebastian kept it at his country retreat, safely under lock and key, and Danny wanted it.

(_"There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu," a voice in his head murmured disapprovingly and Danny struggled to shrug it away.)_

Couple of days of prep time and he felt ready to go.

The first stage of the play was easy enough. He needed to get an invite back to Sebastian's place. After that it was just a case of lifting the notebook containing the safe code from Vince Glen and absconding with the idol in the middle of the night. Couldn't be simpler.

And to get the invite, well. Third Tuesday of every month, Sebastian played poker in the private bar of the Meridian Grande. And the day Danny couldn't talk his way into an invite would be the day that he retired all over again.

First half hour or so he mostly contented himself with listening. Sebastian liked people who thought for themselves but didn't disagree with him. Tough order, but with a little effort he managed to strike the right balance between independence and deference. Enough that Sebastian smiled at him and called him a bloody good sport, for a Yank, and relaxed enough to tell him a couple of off-colour jokes and share what he thought was a wry smile at the outbreak of sycophantic laughter from the other players.

Of course, Vince Glen was sitting against the back wall, never cracking a smile. But Danny tried not to let that put him off.

No, on the whole, he figured things couldn't be going better.

That was until he came back from the bar after a break to see her sitting in his seat, smiling softly as Sebastian talked.

Danny stopped short, staring at her for what felt like forever, and her eyes were fixed on Sebastian but somehow Danny felt like all her attention was on _him._ And when she looked up, when she met his eyes, it was almost unwilling, almost like she'd somehow not been able to avoid looking at him for one second longer.

But Danny forgot all that in an instant.

Eyes locked across a crowded room. Like nothing he had ever felt before. He felt like he could read everything in her gaze, all the magic and wonder and wit and intelligence. Everything that spoke of life and fire and brilliance and passion and...and _pain?_

He started to frown and her expression closed off. She shook her head dismissively, like Danny was beneath notice, and turned back to Sebastian, hanging on his every word.

Danny had no right to feel hurt. No right at all. He didn't even know her.

"Jason!" One of the other players, Bower, had somehow walker up behind him without him even noticing. "See you've noticed our new player. Tasty, isn't she?"

"Who is she?" Danny asked, trying to sound casual.

"I think she said her name was Loretta," Bower said with a shrug. "She just wandered up and asked if she could sit in." He snorted. "Like any man is going to say no to _that._"

She was astonishingly beautiful, even allowing for the fact that she appeared to be wearing a truly startlingly blue snake-skin dress. But her looks weren't what Danny was looking at. Like admiring the shiny box that the diamond was kept in.

And all that, focused on Sebastian Charleston. Somehow Danny felt betrayed.

"We ready to play or what?" he asked abruptly.

She grinned over at him unaffectedly. "You got someplace better to be?"

"You _don't_?" he shot back automatically, and somethought was hovering, just out of his reach.

Still grinning, she reached for the deck as the others took their seats.

The cards danced through her fingers. Danny forgot how to breathe. He'd never seen anyone deal like that before.

(_It was all for him._)

The game went easy enough. Not like he was trying to win. Was all about the conversation. All about getting Sebastian to notice him.

Of course, that was a little difficult when all Sebastian's attention was on the blonde sitting on his left hand side.

"Well, they say looks aren't everything, but you can't wank over a personality, am I right sweetheart?" he leered at her.

She giggled appreciatively. "Right," she nodded. "Else Jane Goodall would be a lot more popular than she is."

Danny blinked and somehow he couldn't help but feel that somewhere in her mind, she was comparing Sebastian to a chimp. Whether she was or not, it flew right over Sebastian's head.

"Oh, yes," he drawled. "Give me a good pair of tits any day."

Gritting his teeth, Danny tried to turn the conversation as far away as he could. "So, Sebastian, you were saying something about your revenge on Shore?" he asked politely.

"What?" Sebastian blinked. "Oh, yes, I remember." He smiled at her. "You'll like this, sweetheart."

It was difficult when all Sebastian's attention was on her. It was even _more _difficult when a good portion of Danny's attention was in the same place. Not that she looked at him. Not even for a second.

He was being ridiculously arrogant here. Vain, even. Foolish to assume that she was feeling the same draw he was. Fuck, he was in danger of turning into one of those guys who thought he was irresistible.

All the same...

It was almost like she was trying to keep him away from Sebastian. For every crude joke he chortled at, for every anecdote he told that had Sebastian smiling appreciatively, she would lean forwards with some intensely distracting comment of funny and flirt.

Again, it hurt, and he didn't know why.

But somehow it was a competition now. And not a friendly one either. He was as charismatic as he knew how to be. Personable and fascinating, charming and deferential, and Sebastian was looking at him warmly and nothing she said distracted him for a second.

After Sebastian invited him to the country house for the weekend, he couldn't help but let the smugness show in his eyes.

The look of sheer fury that came his way was enough to wipe the smile from his face.

* * *

_It was all going wrong._

* * *

**A/N: Would be very interested if you could take the time to let me know what you think. Thanks. :) **_  
_


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: As I mentioned in the first chapter, this story is likely to be around seven chapters long. This is therefore approaching half way point. Which isn't bad, for me. :)**

* * *

Sebastian wasn't any better on his own turf.

In fact, if anything, he'd gotten a little bit worse. The jokes that had been risqué before were now out and out offensive. Right from the first, right from when Sebastian greeted him at the door of his place in the country, an hour or so's drive out of St Louis, with a cheerful clap on the shoulder and a loud "Good to see you, Jason old boy. You're looking positively splendid. I was thinking we might try a spot of golf tomorrow. Did you bring your clubs?"

He'd brought _someone's _clubs. And, fortunately, he had no intention of still being here tomorrow.

"You know," Sebastian continued. "Golf is the natural game for a woman. If she's not holding my _wood_, she should be holding an iron. Ho ho."

Danny let the smile spread across his face, and he managed not to roll his eyes until Sebastian had turned away.

And that was when Vince stepped up behind him, a curious look on his face.

He couldn't have seen anything. Right?

"It's good to see you again, Sebastian," he said cheerfully. "Hello, Vince."

"I'll get Paula to take you up to your room," Sebastian told him. "She's getting on a bit. If she gets lost, just give her a good kicking." He laughed heartily at his own joke. At least Danny _thought _it was a joke...

He was taken upstairs by the maid. She wouldn't meet his eyes and acted like all the spirit had been crushed out of her quite some time ago. Danny carried his own case upstairs and silently slipped her a hundred when they got to his room. _Not _the done thing, he knew, but sometimes there were more important things that staying in character.

Things only got worse when he went downstairs.

_She _was sitting on the loveseat next to Sebastian, smiling at him like he was the most fascinating thing she'd ever seen, and she didn't look up at Danny. But somehow he was aware of her awareness.

Who _was _this woman? And why didn't she know that she could do a thousand times better than Sebastian without even making an effort?

Sebastian looked up at him and stood up slowly. "Jason, there you are. I believe you've met Loretta, yes? Delightful creature. I do so love a woman who thinks she can play cards."

Danny remembered the impossible display of skill and control and kept his expression neutral with an effort.

"Yes, we've met," he agreed. "It's nice to see you again."

"Oh, yes!" she agreed, just a little more enthusiastically than politeness warranted. She covered the awkward moment by accepting Sebastian's outstretched hand to help her to her feet with a coquettish charm, smoothing down the front of his jacket delicately.

Sebastian smirked and shot a knowing look at Danny. "Why don't I show the pair of you round the house?" he suggested.

"That would be lovely," she said, and Danny had no choice but to agree.

The tour did little to help matters. Sebastian led them from room to room, maintaining a constant stream of boasts about his wealth and jokes that hovered just on the wrong side of obscene. If Danny had been paying enough attention, he'd have felt degraded just by proximity.

"Why don't you want me here?" he hissed to her, as Sebastian explained that the antique lamps were worth two thousand a piece, but the old woman who'd previously owned them had been _very _susceptible to Vince's negotiation tactics after Sebastian had taken a liking to them, and he'd got the whole lot for a grand.

She looked at him and her lips twisted briefly. "I would have thought that was obvious," she purred, looking pointedly at Sebastian.

Danny felt the shudder of fury ripple through his soul. "You should set your sights a little higher," he said in a low snarl. "Like the human race."

"D..." She hesitated and took a deep breath. "Don't concern yourself with things that are none of your business," she finished sharply.

He frowned, knowing he was missing something.

"And that door there leads to my rooms," Sebastian announced, oblivious to everything and they both moved to catch up. Sebastian lowered his voice and looked at her appreciatively, and his eyes were nowhere near her _face. _"I have a very big bed you know," he said huskily. "Perhaps you'd like to see it later?"

Dannybit his tongue hard, and this was the sort of primal, agonising protectiveness that he only ever felt for Tess, and what the fuck was going on here?"

"Sebastian, I do believe you're flirting with me," she said with a breathy giggle, and that wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no, and Danny wanted to step forwards and punch that awful smile off Sebastian's face.

"Perhaps," Sebastian said, licking his lips and looking her up and down. "Perhaps you're just _hoping _I'm flirting with you. You know, my bed is so very big that it gets cold at night."

"Awww," she crooned, and personally, Danny hoped Sebastian got frostbite.

"Maybe you'd like to come and warm it for me?" Sebastian suggested, leering at her.

When she glanced sideways at Danny, it was so brief that Danny almost thought he'd imagined it. And then she turned back and fixed Sebastian with a dazzling smile. "I might just take you up on that," she said. "But right now, I'd better go and get changed for dinner. You don't want me wearing something wholly inappropriate, do you?"

"Oh, I can think of a few things," Sebastian said, staring after her hungrily as she sashayed off.

So could Danny. And that made him feel every bit as bad as Sebastian.

"You're awfully quiet, Jason?" Sebastian commented with a frown.

Danny forced a smile. "Didn't like to interrupt."

"No. She is _gagging _for it, isn't she?" Sebastian said with a chortle. "Proper little firecracker too. I'll have that in my bed before the weekend's out, you can bet on that. And then we'll see about a getting a round or two of golf in while she's still too bow-legged to walk straight."

"I'm sure it won't take _you _long," Danny suggested innocently.

It went right over Sebastian's head.

* * *

Dinner was exquisitely prepared and Danny ate it without tasting a bite.

She'd come down to dinner wearing a shimmering red dress that rippled over her body and effortlessly captured Sebastian's attention, and the filth that Sebastian mistook for wit flew thick and fast. And she responded with a steady stream of jokes and flirt and she gazed up at Sebastian through her long lashes like he was the most fascinating man who ever walked the earth.

"I like to see a young filly who's wild at heart," Sebastian leered, after a particularly filthy exchange of jokes. "Makes me think about taming her. I bet you like to be ridden hard."

"Bet you like a touch of the whip too," Vince cut in eagerly, his voice soft and dangerous, his mouth twisted with anticipation.

He had to remind himself that she was right. It was nothing to do with him. And he could take advantage of the fact that Sebastian and Vince were completely distracted to focus on acting steadily drunker.

Remembering not to actually _get _drunk got a little harder every time he saw her lay a hand on Sebastian's arm, or look at Vince with her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

This was torture and he didn't even know why.

"Is this really what you want?" he asked her in a fierce whisper, after she'd excused herself to powder her nose and he'd followed, leaving Sebastian and Vince talking business (and he knew he should be paying attention, he did, but this seemed so much more important).

She looked at him coolly for a long moment and then her eyes dropped down to where his hand was gripping her wrist. "What do _you _want, that's the question?" she mused. "You looking to do a little fumbling around behind Sebastian's back? You're so intent on this little righteous bent of yours...You looking for some gratitude?"

"No!" Danny began to protest, because it wasn't that, it wasn't anything like that.

She raised an eyebrow and somehow he stopped speaking immediately. "Uh huh," she said slowly. "I've seen the way you look at me. You want to explain why _your _leering is so much better than Sebastian's?"

That hurt. That hit him with all the force of a sledgehammer, because it was _true._ He did feel the connection and he did see the beauty, and he _had _been looking.

She looked taken aback for a second, like she hadn't expected him to admit it maybe. But she pressed on quickly. "I thought you were supposed to be Sebastian's friend? Yet here you are, going behind his back." She tutted and shook her head gravely. "Must be awful to be so fucking disloyal."

He watched her walk away and he couldn't think of a damned thing to say.

Back in the dining room and she wouldn't even look at him and she turned to Sebastian with an eager smile. "I do love your house. So roomy and old-fashioned. Like something from an old crime novel."

"Who are you expecting to be murdered?" Danny asked amused, before he could help himself.

She grinned sharply at him. "Haven't decided yet."

"Just watch out for French detectives," he warned her.

"Belgian," she corrected comfortably.

There was a pause and Danny didn't understand what had just happened. None of this made sense. She said the most hurtful things and then they were joking about Agatha Christie like nothing had happened? It was like she wanted to hate him but couldn't quite manage it. And he seriously doubted that was down to his charm and good looks.

What did she _want? _That was the question he needed to answer. What was she trying to achieve? She was practically throwing herself at Sebastian, was carelessly flirting with Vince, and was making it clear that _Danny's _presence was unwelcome. When they were alone, she didn't even try to pretend that she wasn't playing an angle, and she said...things that would hurt him personally. Things that hurt Danny Ocean, not Jason Statton.

Fuck.

She was trying to make him leave. She'd made him, she knew he wasn't who he was pretending to be, and she was trying to make him leave. _Why?_ Because if he got out with some of Sebastian's wealth there wouldn't be as much left for her? His lip curled; that was the most likely explanation.

Still didn't quite ring true though.

He supposed it didn't really matter. He'd be out of here tonight and he'd never see her again.

The thought filled him with a regret he didn't fully understand. She'd made it clear she wasn't looking for his help, she didn't want his help. It wasn't like he was abandoning her to Sebastian. Obviously she knew what she was doing and she'd tried to get rid of him.

None of this counted as betrayal. Not on either side.

The rest of dinner passed quickly and he made a show of asking for more wine another couple of times. They had to believe he was drunk. Apart from anything else it would make it so much more explicable if he punched Sebastian the next time he spent five minutes fondling her on the pretext of adjusting her napkin – no! No, he wasn't going to give in to the anger.

She met his gaze evenly, as Sebastian's hands scrabbled over her inner thigh, and he could read the challenge there as easy as if she'd said it aloud. _You don't like it, just leave._

He wasn't going to do that.

Dessert arrived and he gritted his teeth as she closed her eyes with every bite of meringue and cream and honey, and with every soft, breathy moan, Sebastian and Vince were just that little more entranced, and the grins were wide and lecherous and _knowing._ And that only made it worse, because Danny _knew _somehow that this wasn't an act. He glared his hatred at them and they didn't even notice.

Dinner over and the brandy and whisky flowed quickly. It was good stuff too. Whatever else could be said about him, Sebastian certainly knew his spirits. Also made Danny wish that he was actually able to drink at least a couple of the glasses he made disappear.

"This is...this is an _excellent _evening," he proclaimed earnestly, standing up in his chair and swaying dangerously. "I wanna...wanna propose _toast. _To our generous host."

The others raised their glasses reluctantly. "To Sebastian," she and Vince chorused, and Sebastian sat back, smiling.

He grinned foolishly. "Yeah. Thas what I'm talking about," he cheered exuberantly, and he stumbled and landed neatly on Vince's lap. "Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry," he mumbled, laughing, and even as he was apologising his hand was slipping into Vince's inside pocket and removing the little notebook with the vault code. He managed to get to his feet a second later and smiled vaguely at Vince. "Sorry," he muttered again.

Vince's smile was tight and unforgiving. "That's alright. No harm done," he said.

"I'm just gonna..." He gestured vaguely over his shoulder and staggered out of the room to the sound of Sebastian's amused guffaw and her golden laughter.

Least they didn't suspect anything.

Once he was alone he moved quickly, copying down the codes from the notebook onto a small piece of paper, and hiding the paper in his sock. _Not _the first place anyone searched.

And now he had everything he just had to make sure Vince got the notebook back before he even knew they were gone.

When he got back to the table, Sebastian smirked at him with faux sympathy. "Feeling any better, Jason old boy?"

"Yeah. Much better, thanks," he mumbled.

"Never mind, we're all friends here. And we've all lost our heads in public before," Sebastian said comfortably. "Why, I might be in your state myself if I wasn't staying sober to be sure I can satisfy this young lady here." He patted her thigh familiarly.

"I'm sure it's hard to please her," Vince leered.

Sebastian laughed. "Oh, very hard," he agreed. "About as hard as it's ever been."

"How about it, sugar?" Vince asked, licking his lips. "Do you like it long and hard?"

"Where's my drink?" Danny muttered vaguely, and he reached across the table and knocked a pitcher of iced water squarely into Vince's lap.

"Fuck!" Vince shouted.

"Sorry, sorry, "Danny said immediately, and he grabbed a napkin and started dapping at Vince ineffectually, and while Vince was angrily trying to push him away, Danny slipped the notebook back inside Vince's pocket.

Seconds later, Vince's hand snapped around his wrist. Danny stilled and looked at him blearily and inside he was tense. Had Vince noticed him planting the book?

"That was very unpleasant," Vince said softly. "You clumsy, drunken oaf."

"I _said _I was sorry," Danny replied with drunken injury.

The grip around his wrist got tighter. Telling him that it wouldn't take Vince very much to snap it. "Not good enough," Vince said, his eyes glinting with enjoyment.

"Oh, leave the fellow alone," Sebastian protested mildly. "He's sloshed anyway."

Vince didn't look like he was about to listen.

Danny had to keep the act up. "You're hurting me," he whined, and it was the truth.

Vince showed his teeth. "_Good,_" he said and Danny braced himself.

A second later and a hand was laid on top of the one Vince had clamped around Danny's wrist. "If you're going to dance with someone, shouldn't it be me?" she suggested breathily. "Come on, Vince. Let's go through to the other room and put some music on. You'll be amazed how flexible I am."

A second of tension and then Vince shoved Danny away abruptly. "I'll bet you are," he said to her with a grin.

The rest of the evening was torture. Watching her dance with..._for_...first Vince then Sebastian. He sat in the corner and pretended to be too drunk to stand. In the original plan he'd have excused himself by this point. Headed upstairs. But he didn't trust Vince and Sebastian with her, no matter how much he tried to persuade himself it wasn't his problem. He could see the way they were looking, the way their hands were wandering, and every now and then they looked at him askance, like he was the only inhibiting presence stopping the _dance _from going in a different direction altogether.

It was a relief when she finally smiled and took a step towards the door. "Well, I guess I'll call that a night."

"Oh," Sebastian stood up and walked over to her, standing uncomfortably close. "You sure I can't tempt you to a_...nightcap?" _

She smiled prettily. "The first night in a strange man's house? What kind of a girl do you think I am?"

"Oh, I know _exactly _what kind of girl you are," Sebastian said hoarsely.

She laughed and leaned forwards, brushing a kiss over Sebastian's cheek, and Danny felt like screaming. "I'll see you at breakfast, mmm?" she said and she left.

After a couple of minutes Danny stood up. "I should...yeah. G'night." He wandered off and they barely acknowledged him.

She was waiting for him outside his bedroom door. "How's your wrist?" she asked abruptly.

He gave it a cursory glance. The bruises were already showing. "It's fine."

"_Idiot," _she muttered.

He ignored that. There were more important things to talk about right now. "Look," he said, and he was staring straight into her eyes, and every word was burning with truth and sincerity. "I don't know what you think you're doing here, but you've got to see that this isn't the way to solve anything. You want to think about how those gorillas would be acting if I wasn't here to make them think twice? Whatever trouble you're in, there are other options. Better choices. I can help you. I swear I'll help you. Just say the word and we'll walk away right now. I promise."

For the briefest of moments her eyes were warm, shining with myriad emotions that he didn't understand, that didn't make sense. For the briefest of moments she was looking at him like he was all she'd ever want. Then it was as if someone threw a switch and all that was just shut away. "My, you certainly know how to turn a girl's head, don't you?" she murmured. "I'm just fine here. Don't you go worrying about me. The question you should be asking is do _you _really know what you're doing?"

She walked past him while he was still trying to puzzle out what she meant. "Goodnight...Jason," she said, emphasising his false name.

He grinned. "Goodnight..._Loretta,_" he imitated, and he was just as certain that wasn't her name.

Her soft laugh was his only answer.

* * *

**A/N: I would be very interested to know what you think of this story so far. Thanks. :) **


	4. Chapter 4

He didn't go to sleep. There didn't seem much point to it. Instead he got changed from evening wear into sneaking-through-the-house-in-the-middle-of-the-night wear, stuck his tools and flashlight in his pockets, checked that there was nothing traceable in his overnight bag and dropped the bag lightly out of the window.

It barely made a sound but still he held his breath for a long moment, just in case. Seemed like he was fine. If everything went the way it was supposed to, if his luck was in, he'd pick it up on the way out. If not...well, there was nothing there he couldn't walk away from, if he got the chance.

(_He tried not to think that nowadays there was very little in his _life _he couldn't walk away from._)

Now all he had to do was wait. And try not to think about sparkling blue eyes and a smile that could light up the world.

At half three he moved. The house had been completely silent for over an hour now. Seemed as safe as he could hope for.

Downstairs and through the nondescript door in the hall that looked like it led to a closet but actually opened up into a long corridor. Now, as he remembered, he had to turn left and follow the path as it headed steeply downwards, and now he was standing at a crossroads, and left would take him to the usually unmanned security office, and straight on would take him towards the wine cellar and right...

Right took him to the vault.

Everything was going according to plan. He stepped to the left, careful not to stand on the pressure pad and confidently entered the code that would disarm the security system.

The door gave a dull beep and swung open.

There. He had five minutes before it rearmed himself. Time enough to grab the statuette and get out of here.

He ignored everything else in the vault. He had a plan and this was no time to get greedy. After a tense moment's searching, he found the statuette on a shelf. He squinted at it for a long moment. It was ugly in a strangely endearing way. Reminded him of something, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

With a happy smile, he took the statuette off the shelf, dropped it into the bag on his back and headed for the door.

The moment he put his foot over the threshold, the alarm started screeching.

_Fuck._

He was running back along the corridor and he was almost at the crossroads and he paused because if he ran back up into the house he'd be running into God-knows-what, but there was the second exit on the other side of the basement, and that might be the way to go here, but he couldn't say for _definite _they wouldn't have it covered. After all, he still didn't know exactly what had set the alarm off.

The sound of running footsteps.

Time hung for a long second as he made up his mind.

And then someone crashed into him hard, shoving him forwards with violent desperation, and even as he stumbled across the corridor, the gunshot rang out behind him.

Later, he'd swear that he _felt _the draft as the bullet went past and buried itself in the wall where he'd been standing less than half a second before.

And _she _was there, her hand clamped around his arm in a deathgrip dragging him upwards and onwards. "You really go the time to stand and admire the sights?" she demanded. "Come _on."_

They ran.

She steered him down the corridor towards the security office, and he could hear Vince shouting behind them.

Must have been Vince shooting. And Vince hadn't come round the corner yet, so he must've been shooting blind. A ricochet. And if Danny had been standing there a second longer that bullet would have torn straight through him, and he'd have been praying he bled out before Vince went to work on him.

He guessed luck wasn't with him tonight.

And she'd saved his life and now he was following her out of here and he didn't know why he trusted her so much.

"Where did you come from anyway?" he called.

"Wine cellar," she answered succinctly.

Huh. "You get thirsty in the middle of the night?" he asked.

"Something like that," she agreed, and she turned her head and flashed a grin back at him.

He smiled at her, and right now, here, running for his life, he felt impossibly alive. He couldn't _remember _the last time he'd felt this way. And he never, ever wanted to let the feeling go.

They ran through the security office, and he turned, ready to slam the door shut, and without him saying a word she was already moving to help him, grabbing the fire extinguisher off the wall ready to wedge it beneath the door handle.

Very briefly he caught a glimpse of Vince running along the corridor, gun in hand, clad only in his blue-spotted boxers.

They slammed the door shut and exchanged a quick glance.

"Well – " she began, shaking her head slowly.

" – yeah," Danny agreed fervently.

Some things he could live without seeing.

She grinned brilliantly and jammed the door with the fire extinguisher and they were running again.

They tore down the corridor as fast as they could, and the exit to the underground garage was in front of them. He grabbed the handle. Locked. Terrific. And there was a keypad, but when he punched in the code, nothing happened.

"There's an override code for when the security system's been triggered," she said, shoving past him exasperatedly. "That's what you were missing when you left the vault. Vince doesn't have the authority to take anything _out _the vault, Sebastian's the only one with the code." Her tone was sharp, like she thought he should have _known _all this.

He _should've _known all this. But it was the sort of detail that usually...

He blinked, shaking his head against the familiar sensation of loss as she typed the code in quickly and opened the door.

"How did you get it?" he asked, mostly for something to say.

"Sebastian uses the serial number on his pocket watch," she explained, and Danny remembered the way she'd smoothed down Sebastian's jacket, remembered a dozen times throughout the evening when she'd been too close for comfort. Plenty of opportunity. "My car's over there," she said, leading him to a little red Porsche.

"Huh," he said surprised.

She looked at him quickly. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," he said. "Just not the car I was picturing you with, that's all."

"Uh huh." She smiled. "What were you picturing me with?"

"A Mustang," he said definitely, and he had no idea why.

The smile slid away. "Come on," she said awkwardly, turning away from him like she couldn't bear to look at him. "Let's get out of here before Vince shows up again."

That sounded like a good idea.

* * *

They started the long drive back to the city, losing themselves effortlessly amid the traffic on the freeway. It was so much busier than he'd normally expect at this time of night that he had no doubt that even if Vince _had _managed to follow them, there'd be no way that he'd be able to catch them. They were home free. And that was just dandy, up till the point where she'd been in danger in the first place because of his stupidity.

"I'm sorry," he said with awkward sincerity, once he'd convinced himself that they weren't going to find themselves in a high speed pursuit.

She sighed and turned to look at him. "Danny..." she began, and they both knew in an instant precisely what was wrong with _that._

Danny stared. "How do you know my name?" He'd never given her his real name. Not because...he just hadn't got round to it yet, that was all.

There was a long silence. "I...knew who you were the moment I saw you," she said at last, and now her eyes were fixed on the road like she wasn't going to look away for a second.

"You can't tell me we've met," Danny said adamantly. He would have remembered. He couldn't imagine how anyone could forget.

"No," she agreed. "We haven't _met._ But I know who you are, that's all." She grinned but she didn't look at him. "The Benedict job and everything...you gotta know you're pretty well known in certain circles."

"Huh." He mulled on that for a while. And there was truth there, but not the whole truth. "So you got a name?" he asked.

"I've got several," she answered promptly.

He grinned. "A _real _name?" he clarified.

Her eyes flickered sideways. "Sammy Smith," she told him.

"Sammy..." he said out loud, trying it out.

"Short for Susan," she added cheerfully.

Short for...Oh, he wasn't going to get into that.

Besides. That wasn't what was strange here. What was strange here was that she was quick and brilliant and she dealt cards like _that, _and he had to admit, however much he hated her methods, she'd drawn Sebastian in effortlessly, and the way she'd got them away from Vince, the way she'd got the override code...oh, the question here was how had he never even heard of her before?

His memory wasn't like...his memory wasn't perfect, but he would have remembered hearing about someone like her. Not to boast, but he did have a reputation and people did tell him things. Someone operating on her level...he should have known her before now.

He looked sideways at her. "You're – "

" – oh, this wasn't my first dance," she assured him, sounding amused. "Not by a long shot."

Right. And that left him no further forwards. "Do you know anyone I might know?" he hazarded.

"No," she said after the briefest of moments. "I don't know anyone."

There was such _pain _in her voice. The same pain that had been there the first night they'd met. Without conscious thought he reached out and placed his hand on hers on the steering wheel.

She shot him a brief wondering glance, but she didn't shrug him off and they sat in silence.

It felt right. Felt comfortable. Felt like touching the stars.

He wouldn't ask anymore, not right now. He wanted to know the story – hell, he wanted to know everything about her – but more than that, he didn't want to make her unhappy.

Instead, as they drove into the sunrise, they talked about heist movies and frozen root beer, and the problems of having a robot butler, and a thousand wonderful, trivial things, and all the meaning was in the words they didn't say.

He didn't need to explain what he was thinking. Not once.

* * *

This was heaven and this was hell, all at once.

She wished it had never happened, and she revelled in each agonising moment.

This was close to being all she wanted. Close, and a thousand miles away. Every time Danny looked at her and she saw the hopeful unknowingness in his eyes, she died a little.

She had to get out of here. She had to walk away all over again. No matter how much it hurt to leave, it would be worse if she stayed.

She just had to be strong.

Yeah, right. Who was she kidding? She'd lost already.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Thanks, as always, to InSilva for prereading and reassuring. You probably get bored of reading that. I don't get bored of saying it.**

**A/N2: Warnings for...ah, just beware, 'kay? **

* * *

The car drew up outside the hotel maybe an hour later. "Well, it was nice meeting you, Danny," she said with practiced brightness. "I'll maybe see you around some time."

That was...that was _it? _After all that, after they'd just met, everything he was feeling, she was just going to drive away? This wasn't _right. _This wasn't the way things were supposed to go. He might have been uncertain before but now he _knew _that these emotions, this strange connection...it wasn't all him. She'd risked everything to help him, she'd abandoned her own plans and hadn't even complained, and he'd _seen _the look in her eyes when she was examining his wrist. Whatever this was, she felt it too. And it wasn't something they should be walking away from.

"Why don't you come in for a drink?" he proposed. "I'd like to get to know you better. I'd like to say thank you."

"You don't need to thank me," she said immediately.

He thought maybe he did. But he nodded anyway. "Let me buy you a drink, at least. Please, Sammy."

She hesitated and he could see the temptation in her eyes, the longing. It was almost painful to watch and he waited, keeping his face neutral and encouraging with an effort, trying not to pressure her trying not to do anything that would scare her off.

"Alright," she said at last, her voice soft, sounding like she'd actually surprise herself.

He smiled like he was never going to stop. "Fantastic."

"One drink," she stipulated. "Just because...just because."

"One drink," he agreed. He could live with that. Maybe he could persuade her to give him her number somewhere along the line. Even if they couldn't be anything else, professional contacts was better than nothing, right? "Oh, yeah," he added, remembering. "Talking of things I owe you, you should get half the profits from this little jaunt."

She was already opening her mouth to protest before he'd finished speaking. "I don't – "

" – if they'd caught us together when you were helping me escape, you think that they would have believed you weren't in on the theft?" He raised an eyebrow. "You face half the danger, you get half the profit. It's as simple as that, in my book anyway."

She smiled helplessly. "I suppose it is. Can I see it?"

"Sure," he agreed, pulling the bag open.

She looked at the statue for a long moment. "Huh. It looks like one of those plastic troll dolls that you used to get everywhere."

He blinked. It did. It really did. "_That's _what I was trying to remember," he said, satisfied.

"Glad to be of service," she grinned. "You got a buyer in mind?"

Not really. This had been more for the thrill than the cash. "I know a couple of people who'll be interested," he said with a shrug.

"Would have thought you'd want to get rid of it as quickly as possible," she commented. "After the trouble it's caused."

Amused, he raised an eyebrow. "You're blaming the idol?"

"What do you expect if you steal the green eye of the little yellow god?" she asked him.

He'd heard that before. Or thought that before, maybe. "Excuse me, I stole the _whole _of the little yellow god, thank you very much," he pointed out. "Anyway, you don't really believe in curses, do you?"

She smiled. "I don't know that anything good's coming to come from that statue."

_It brought me to you. _He didn't say it. He wasn't going to say it. But, God, he wanted to.

"Alright then," she said grimly, looking away from him. "Let's go inside."

* * *

The hotel bar was still open, which was strange but Danny wasn't complaining. He didn't want to invite her up to his room just yet. What she'd said was still smarting a little too much for that. The idea that he looked at her like Sebastian did...it made his skin crawl. He wanted to prove that he was different. That he was _better _than that.

A secluded corner, a bottle of whisky from the bleary-eyed man behind the bar, and that was almost as good.

Silence settled and they sipped their drinks and watched each other comfortably.

"So," Danny said at last, and stopped, smiling.

"So," Sammy agreed, smiling right back.

There were things he wanted to say, a lifetime of things, maybe. But the conversation ahead was a thin sheet of ice covering unimaginable landmines, and at least if he started out on solid ground, he might have a chance.

"What were you after from Sebastian?" he asked.

The smile widened a little. "Thought you thought I was after Sebastian," she said and there was a razor's edge of hurt beneath the words that made Danny wince.

"I did," he agreed. "And now I think I thought wrong."

"_Did _you?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"If that was what you were after, you'd have left me to Vincent," Danny stated calmly.

"Maybe I'm a golddigger with a heart of gold," Sammy suggested. "Whoring around with the rich till someone better comes along."

Danny's mouth tightened. "No. That's not you. That's really not you." He spoke with absolute certainty.

She sighed. "What I was after...maybe I'm just not meant to have it," she said, talking into her glass, and her voice was cut through with misery.

"Cryptic," he commented lightly, but beneath that there was nothing but the ache of sympathy and the burn of guilt. She made it sound...she made it sound like what she had been after _mattered. _Not like him, chasing after a mark out of boredom and the need to prove himself to himself. No, there was something in her voice that spoke of opportunities missed and chances that would never come again, and he'd ruined all that by blundering into her plan and forcing her to save him. He'd rarely felt so gauche.

And yet, did he truly regret it?

Not just because he felt like meeting her might be one of the most important moments of his life.

He'd worried earlier tonight that if he hadn't been there, Sebastian and Vince might have taken things too far. And he still worried about that, but now he wondered if perhaps she would have taken it that way too, if she'd felt she had to.

"No," she said breaking into his thoughts. "That was never part of the plan."

It was rarely the plan that caused problems. It was the necessary improvisations.

"I'm very good at saying no," she told him, and that wasn't exactly answering the question he hadn't managed to ask.

She sighed. "Maybe. If it was necessary, I would have."

"Necessary,?" he asked, his soul twisting at the very thought.

"I don't know...if it could keep someone I cared about safe, say," she said irritably. "I'd have let Sebastian and Vince do whatever they want, if that was what it took." She looked at him levelly. "Would you do anything less?"

He thought of Tess. Thought of the way she smiled. Thought of how fragile she had looked, lying in that hospital bed all those months back. "Yes. I suppose I would," he said slowly. To keep the people he loved safe...there wasn't anything he wouldn't do.

"Well then," she said and she poured them both another glass of whisky.

The idea of just one drink seemed to have died away, and inwardly Danny rejoiced.

"So where are you based out of?" he asked casually.

"Nowhere. Everywhere," she shrugged. "I guess I'm just drifting at the moment. At something of a loose end."

He didn't say anything. He waited, his eyes soft and encouraging, because she _wanted _to say more, he knew she wanted to say more, but it was like she didn't think she should.

"I had a partner," she said abruptly. "Up until recently. We worked together. And he was...and it was..." She waved a hand as though to convey a world of unimaginable wonder. "And now it isn't."

"I'm sorry, Sammy," he said, and meant it. "I know how it feels to loose someone." And the partner was a _moron _to leave her.

Sammy shrugged awkwardly. "_I _was the one who left. It was my decision. I _made _it my decision."

Her voice was rich with misery. "And you regret it?" he asked softly.

"No." Surprisingly, she shook her head firmly. "No, I _had _to. I had to leave. It wasn't what I wanted, or what he wanted, but it was necessary."

She was talking fast, her words falling over each other, and it was like she'd never said any of this out loud before, and he thought of the loneliness when she'd said she didn't know anyone.

Somehow, he thought, somehow she didn't have _anyone._

He laid his hand on hers briefly. "Oh, Sam," he murmured, his voice aching.

Sammy stopped talking and stared at him, and her lips were quirked, and it wasn't quite a smile. It was too miserable for that. "You just can't help yourself, can you?" she murmured inexplicably.

He didn't know how to answer that. "You wanted him safe," he guessed, going back to the partner.

"I wanted him _happy,_" she corrected, unthinkingly.

He looked at her for a long moment. "Is he?"

She shook her head. "No. But he wouldn't have been happy if I'd stayed either."

Huh. There was something a little cold in the midst of that. That she'd rather leave her partner in pain than have to live with it. "It's not my business – " he began, and she looked up sharply.

" - You're right," she agreed brightly. "It's not your business."

Oh. He tried to hide the feeling of rejection as best he could, reminding himself that he'd just met her three days before. "I didn't mean it was all your fault. It's just..." He bit his lip gently. "I split up from my wife recently."

She interrupted. "You and...you're divorced?"

"Separated," he corrected, and maybe he should be feeling guilty that he was sitting here with a beautiful woman, feeling a rush of emotions he didn't dare identify, and all the while, deep inside, he was still hoping he'd get back together with Tess.

(_Why wasn't he feeling guilty?) _

"I'm _sorry," _Sammy said, looking at him.

"Not your fault. Not her fault," he added. "One day I just woke up and it was like something was missing. And no matter what I did, that feeling just wouldn't go away. And Tess could tell she wasn't enough for me anymore and the _look _in her eyes..." He sighed. "So, yeah. Maybe you're right. Maybe sometimes it's kinder to walk away."

He looked up and she was watching him fixedly, and her eyes were weary, full of sorrow and regret – it was almost more than he could bear. Almost more than he understood.

"But you still love her," she said softly.

Yeah. That had never been in question. "You still love him," he countered.

"Oh, yes," she agreed.

"Ten years of my life. Or six," he added morosely, thinking of four years in prison, and not even knowing if Tess was waiting for him, and the one bright spot had been when she'd sent him cookies and he'd known he wasn't forgotten. "Yeah, I love her. I miss her. "He drained his glass quickly and poured another one. "So how about you?" he asked. "How long were you and – "

" – twenty three years," she said quietly.

Danny choked on his whisky. "_Twenty three years_?"

She shrugged awkwardly. "I'm older than I look."

"You'd have to be. Jesus, Sam." He shook his head slowly, and he thought he understood now. The loneliness, the pain, the awkward self-isolation. To live so long with your world bound up in one person and then to have to try and live without them...he shivered. "That must be...I can't imagine."

"Yes you can," she said, quickly drinking her own drink down.

Yeah. Yeah, he could always _imagine._

"Time isn't the issue anyway," she went on, staring at the empty glass in her hand. "Sometimes a second is long enough to know everything you'll ever need to. Sometimes forever is over in the blink of an eye."

"Sometimes three days is a lifetime," he said, not looking at her.

There was a brief silence. "Sometimes three days is all you get," she said, her voice soft and reluctant, like she didn't want to hurt him.

He nodded and didn't ask _why. _She didn't owe him any whys. She didn't owe him anything. "You think you'll ever go back to him?" he asked.

"No," she said shortly, finishing her drink again. "Never. You think you'll get back together with Tess?" She sounded hopeful.

"Maybe," Danny admitted. "Some day. If I can sort myself out."

Sammy looked at him intently. "Maybe you should stop thinking about what's missing," she suggested. "Just accept that it's gone if it ever existed. Focus on what's real. You love Tess, you said so. Don't you think that should be enough? Don't you think you both deserve to be happy?"

Her voice was soft and persuasive like this was the most important argument she'd ever made, like Danny's happiness mattered more than anything in the world.

"Sometimes," he admitted softly. "But I can't forget. I can't remember, but I can't forget."

But right now he didn't feel like he was missing anything. Right now, sitting with her, he felt complete and he wanted to hold on to her and never let her go.

That was what he wanted and she was trying to persuade him to go back to Tess, but her hand was on his now, holding on like a lifeline and the touch of her skin was electric.

"Maybe you deserve to be happy too," he suggested, his voice as even as he could make it.

Her face closed down. "Our situations are...different."

Yeah. He wasn't stupid. He'd got the idea that this wasn't a simple break up, and his speculations ranged from another woman to someone like Vince, out for revenge and willing to hurt anyone close to her. "There's more to it, isn't there?"

Her eyes were blank. "Like you said. I want him safe." She shook her head. "I should go," she said, starting to stand up. "Places to go. Things to do."

"Like what?" he challenged. She'd already said that she knew no one. That she was alone.

"That's not fair," she said with a grimace, sitting back down again.

Danny looked at Sammy. "Look. If you want to leave, leave. I don't want to keep you if you don't want to stay. But you should know I'm here. Whatever you want. Whatever you need. If you're in trouble, I can help."

"You do help," Sammy admitted softly, a hint of reluctance in her voice. "Talking...'s been a while." She grinned crookedly.

"I know the feeling," Danny returned immediately. He did. He'd talked to her about Tess, about the way he felt something was missing...right now, she knew more about him than anyone else.

And for some reason he was absolutely comfortable with that.

Maybe this would last and maybe it wouldn't.

But tonight was all about enjoying the moment.

* * *

Time had passed and somewhere along the way the bottle had wound up empty and they'd had to rustle up another one.

And somehow Sammy still hadn't left. She should have. She knew she should have. This wasn't breaking the deal she'd made with the Faceless, but if she got too involved...there might be consequences.

One night. One night wasn't breaking the rules, even in the unlikely event that the Faceless found out. After all, she still had duties and responsibilities. All she was doing was fulfilling them.

Even in her own head, that was fucking weak.

Thing was, being with Danny was intense and intoxicating. It was dizzying and everything she wanted. Danny's mere presence was addictive, even now when he looked without seeing her.

Maybe it would be easier if Danny was happy. But Danny's voice when he talked about Tess, when he talked about feeling like he'd lost something...there had been an eternity of unknowing pain there, and she'd wanted to reach out, to take Danny into her arms and never let go.

But time had passed and the conversation had turned and they'd been swapping stories. She'd listened to Danny talking through the Whittaker job, and that little jaunt on the yacht in Barbados, and a half dozen other stories that once upon a time, in another life, she'd experienced first hand.

That hadn't stopped her listening. That hadn't stopped her smiling. And when Danny told her about Texas and the snakes, that hadn't stopped her howling with laughter.

And thing was, she could hear the places where Danny stumbled over the words, could see the frown when Danny was aware on some level that something was missing, where the story didn't add up, or a different person had been shoe-horned in to fill the gap.

The Faceless had done a lousy job of removing Rusty Ryan from the universe.

Oh, it was all very well in the big picture. No one remembered Rusty, after all, and all the physical traces of his existence had been erased.

The Standard had been razed to the ground to make room for an adult entertainment complex. The Mustang had been seized by the cops, crushed and compacted, after its owner was arrested on drugs charges. The ring Danny had bought for him so many years ago was owned by a nurse who wore it when he murdered his girlfriend. It was in box of confiscated property now.

She'd made sure the Faceless couldn't go after her friends and so they had taken petty pleasure in showing her the destruction of the things she'd cared about.

Actually, maybe that should tell her something. Maybe the fact that Danny could still feel the loss wasn't just carelessness. Maybe it was deliberate. A way to twist the knife just that little bit more. She wouldn't be surprised.

One night only. That was all she could risk. And that was partly because of the danger, and partly because being this close to Danny without being close to Danny was killing her.

One night only. And she buried the pain and smiled and discovered that the time with the two bags of rubies still made perfect sense if she just substituted the fast horse for a motorbike, and the court magician for a fake psychic, and she thought that Danny was never going to stop laughing.

One night. Just one night.

* * *

Drink and stories flowed like magic and Danny felt the warmth burning deep inside, and it wasn't just the booze.

Sammy was brilliant and funny and dazzling and beautiful, and Danny thought that he could be happy if he spent the rest of his life with her.

And the night was wearing on and the whisky had gone to his head, and the world was blurry round the edges and sometimes he looked at her and he could see the shine.

She gazed down into her glass. "See, it's like...there's this person. This wonderful, magical person who makes you feel more than you ever dreamed you could be, who makes you feel whole, who you'd give _everything _for. An' you think it's going to last forever."

There was love in her voice. Love and misery and absolute unshakeable devotion.

Danny was jealous of a man he'd never met.

"And it doesn't," he answered, nodding, and he was thinking about Tess and he was thinking about...

"It doesn't," she agreed. "And then there's just - "

" - memories." Memories and notmemories and mighthavebeenmemories.

"Exactly." Her hand tightened around the glass and she didn't seem to have anything else to say..

Danny did. "And...and nothing's ever the same again. And you spend all your time wondering what you could have done different, wondering why it wasn't _enough._"

"It was enough," she said softly, gazing at him intently. "It was always enough."

He didn't understand. He didn't understand at all, but he wanted to lean forwards and kiss her. And he did.

She tasted like a summer's day, bright and brilliant, glorious and neverending. She tasted like a golden forever, like magic in human form. And she kissed him back with wonder and passion, and yet when they broke apart her eyes were wide and startled.

He'd kissed her, he dimly realised. He hadn't meant to kiss her, had he? "Sam, I – " he began.

" – Danny," she whispered, her voice full of desperate longing.

He licked his lips, and the way she was looking at him...suddenly the world seemed so very simple. "Do you want to come upstairs?"

"You're married," she pointed out with slow reluctance.

"That...doesn't matter tonight," he said quietly. It didn't. Maybe it would in the morning, but right now he didn't _care. _"Please. I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't want _you _to be alone."

* * *

This wasn't what she should be doing. She shouldn't even _consider _this. Rusty had never...

But she was never going to get the closeness to Danny that she craved. Maybe this was as close as she could possibly get.

Danny was right there. Looking at her. _Smiling _at her.

(_She was so fucking _lonely..._)_

She couldn't turn away.

* * *

The hotel room door crashed open, and they were kissing, pressed against each other with desperate fire, needing to be as close as possible, and she tore his shirt off his shoulders, and he was kissing her face, her neck, his hands easing the dress up over her hips.

Her hands were undoing his belt, and he pressed her against the wall, his hands everywhere at once, the fire building, raging out of control

He remembered himself a little. "Have you got – " he asked between kisses.

" – no," she began. "Yes! Bag."

She hadn't _had _a bag.

But then it didn't matter, because the bag was in her hands, and she pulled out a packet of condoms, and he kicked his pants free and she was on her knees, God, the condom in her mouth, rolling over him, her warm mouth engulfing him, and he groaned and leaned forwards, his hands crashing against the wall in a desperate attempt to stay on his feet.

She grinned up at him. "Not yet," she said, standing up slowly, and there was a second of nothing and Danny could weep in frustration.

She leaned forwards and kissed him, like it was her last night alive, and then, somehow, her legs were wound around his hips, her back braced against the wall, and he was holding her up, his hands against her waist, and she was looking down at him, her mouth pressed against his insistently, and then there was glorious heat and frantic movement, and her arms were around his neck, clinging to him, and they moved together like they were made for each other, two halves of the same soul.

He heard her cry out his name, and an instant later, so close to make no difference, the world exploded behind his eyes.

"Rusty!"

There was a long silence.

A long, cold, terrible silence.

He opened his eyes, and the blue eyes inches from his own were frozen and frightened.

"Rusty," he said again numbly.

He knew. He _knew._

Somehow she was further away from him. On the other side of the room, shaking her head quickly. "No. No."

He didn't make a move. He didn't raise a hand to stop her.

With a look of terror, Sammy vanished.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: New chapter! And there are probably more than seven. In total I mean, not left.**

* * *

He'd phoned ahead. Told her how much he wanted to see her. Told her how much he missed her. And, thankfully, she'd agreed that they needed to talk at least.

Now he was sitting in the restaurant, nervous as all hell, hiding behind a wine glass, wondering if he was doing the right thing, wondering what he was going to say, wondering if she'd even show.

"Are you ready to order, sir?" the waiter murmured in his ear.

Danny shook his head. "No. I'm still waiting for someone."

"Of course, sir," the waiter agreed amiably, and it was pretty clear he thought Danny had been stood up.

Wasn't impossible. He sighed. Honestly, he wouldn't be surprised if she'd changed her mind. This was such a stupid _mess. _His life had fallen to pieces and just because he now understood some of the _whys_ didn't mean it was any easier to bear.

This might be his last chance to fix things. His last chance to reach out and grab some happiness.

"Hi, Danny." Her voice sent shivers down his spine. Oh it had been so long. Too long.

He looked up at her and smiled and she took his breath away all over again. "Hi, Tess," he said simply.

* * *

It had been an extremely long and wearing couple of months. From the moment Sammy...Rusty..._whoever_ had vanished from his hotel room he'd been lost. Angry and bewildered and _lost._

He remembered but he didn't remember, all at once. He didn't remember details – no stories, no occasions. He couldn't even picture Rusty's face. He had an impression of a man...his partner, his friend...and he knew that the man hadn't exactly been human.

And that didn't even make _sense. _This was the real world and he'd long outgrown his belief in ghosts and fairies and things that went bump in the night.

But he'd seen Sammy vanish with his own eyes. And somehow he'd been made to forget a person.

He didn't understand any of this but he was confused and hurting and he hated it.

That night his first instinct had been to find Sammy. Unfortunately he hadn't had the first clue where to start. When he went downstairs he'd found her car was still there, parked innocently, and for three days he'd staked it out, before he accepted that she wasn't coming back. Not for the car. Not for him.

And he'd wandered the country, making discreet enquiries, asking about Sammy Smith and about Rusty Ryan. No one had heard either name. Neither of them showed up in any database that Bobby or Livingston could access.

The more he realised it was hopeless the more he wondered why he was even trying.

She'd left him. She'd left him _twice _apparently. And the first time she'd wiped his memory of her very existence.

He couldn't shake the feelings of anger and violation.

And he wasn't stupid. Of course he'd figured that that he was the partner she'd talked about. But that didn't help. That told him that it was twenty three years of his life she'd stolen. And he couldn't help but remember his suspicions that she'd walked away because she didn't want to share in her partner's – in _his _– pain, and he remembered her telling him it wasn't his business.

His life wasn't his business?

Felt like she was dismissing him. Toying with him. They'd had sex, even, and just thinking about it made his head hurt.

(_Didn't exactly help that it had felt so _good.)

They'd been together, she'd left, stolen his memories, and then come back, just to twist the knife some more.

She was playing with his life and he'd had enough.

Time to get back to the real world. Time to focus on the people who really cared about him, the people he loved who weren't twisted up with childish amusements and bitter games.

* * *

Through dinner they talked of inconsequentialities. Getting caught up with each other's lives and he revelled in Tess' presence, this amazing woman, his wife, and he convinced himself that he knew she was all he needed. He poured her a glass of the Chateau Haut Batailley. Her favourite and she smiled slightly on seeing it. The small thoughtful gestures had never been his problem. When he screwed up it tended to be something more fundamental.

"So you wanted to talk?" Tess asked, after the waiter had cleared their plates before and brought another bottle.

"Yeah," he agreed quietly, and he sighed and looked her straight in the eyes. "Tess, I'm so sorry. I know how badly I messed up. I know how much I hurt you. And I'm sorry."

She nodded and toyed awkwardly with her glass and none of this was exactly news to her. "Are you about to ask me to take you back? Or are you going to ask me for a divorce."

His breath caught in his throat. "I don't want a divorce," he said instantly before he could even think. "Do...do you?" He was terrified of the answer. But if that was what she truly wanted, he'd let her go.

The relief on her face gave him his answer. "No. I love you, Danny, but the way things were before you left...I don't want to go back to that. It was like a piece of you was missing and it felt like you blamed me."

"I didn't," he said quickly, horrified at the thought.

"But that's how it _felt,_" she explained softly.

"Oh, Tess." He sighed and shook his head. "No. Not ever. I think we both know that the problem was all with me."

"I just didn't understand what the problem was," she admitted wretchedly. "If you'd been looking to spend more time with your friends or something...I understand that I'm not the only person in your life, Danny."

He froze. Because that tone of reassurance held an air of familiarity. Like they'd had this conversation before. Only he knew they hadn't.

Rusty.

Tess was talking about Rusty and she didn't even know it.

His wasn't the only mind Rusty had fucked with.

How dare she? How _dare _she? Everything that was wrong with Danny's marriage could be traced to Sammy..._Rusty. _Seemed like she'd been getting in the middle of his relationship for a long time, and now it turned out she'd been messing with Tess' mind as well? Tess was off limits. He ever saw that _bastard _again, he was going to show her _exactly _how unhappy he was.

Oblivious to Danny's rising fury, Tess kept talking. "But there was nothing like that and you wouldn't _talk _to me?"

"I'm sorry," he managed, his voice pitched low. "I don't know what was wrong with me. It felt like I was missing something important. But I know now that I wasn't. I'm sorry, Tess. I know I don't have the right to ask for your forgiveness."

She smiled at him, blinking back tears. "Oh, Danny," she said, reaching across the table to take his hand.

He drew back quickly. "There's something else," he said carefully, and he found he couldn't meet her eyes anymore.

Her hand was frozen half way across the table. "Danny?" she said uncertainly.

"I..." Guilt consumed him. "While we weren't actually together I..." He couldn't finish.

Tess drew her hand back. "Oh," she said in a very small voice.

He wished he could have lied to her. He wished he could have just avoided telling her. But he he'd made that mistake before. And even though he wasn't going to tell her the complicated truth about Sammy, she deserved to know about his infidelity. He'd betrayed her and it hadn't just been about sex. If it had been all about the physical maybe he could have forgiven himself. But for one sparkling, golden moment of disloyalty he'd loved.

(_Must be awful to be so fucking disloyal, Sammy had told him, and it _was._) _

"It was just one time," he told her miserably. "It was a mistake. A stupid, stupid mistake." He wished he could find a way to say something that wasn't a cliché, but the truth was he had no good excuses. There _were _no good excuses, just a moment of aching loneliness and feeling like he'd met someone who completed him. And it had all been a series of callous lies and manipulations and that didn't change the fact that he'd cheated on Tess.

Tess looked absolutely devastated. Numbly uncomprehending. He knew that she'd never truly considered the possibility that he might cheat. Up until it happened _he'd _never thought about it either.

"We _were _separated..." she said very, very slowly.

"That's not an excuse," he said immediately.

A ghost of a smile that immediately dissolved into misery. "Most men would say otherwise."

"It was wrong," he said firmly. He knew that.

"So who was she?" Tess asked studying her fingernails like they were the most fascinating sight in the world.

"She was...I met her while I was working," he explained carefully, and he wanted to tell her as much of the truth as possible. "There was trouble. I messed up. She..." He hesitated briefly, because Tess didn't know much about people like Vince and he never wanted her to. "She saved me from getting caught," he chose to say, and he'd let her take her own assumptions from that.

"And you just fell into bed together?" Tess asked coldly.

They hadn't exactly got as far as a bed. "I was stupid," he said again. "I imagined some connection...I don't have any excuses, Tess. And like I said. I know I don't deserve your forgiveness."

She closed her eyes for a second. "I need time, Danny. I need to get my head around this."

"Of course," he said at once, wondering if she was letting him down gently. "Whatever you want."

She reached across the table and laid her hand on his arm. "Time, Danny. Not forever. I don't want to lose you again. You're going to stay in town for a while, right?"

He smiled thankfully. "As long as you want," he promised.

* * *

Sammy sat at the bar in the Bellagio, surrounded by the sounds of the hopeful and the lucky, the desperate and the damned, and she breathed in the heady atmosphere like it was all that was keeping her alive.

The whisky tasted like water. So far she had drunk her way through three shift changes and she wasn't planning on moving anytime soon.

Things had gone about as wrong as they could possibly get.

The look in Danny's eyes...she figured she'd be seeing that for the rest of her life. And by the very nature of things that was more time than she could easily bear.

Forever was a very long time when it was spent in loneliness and recriminations.

She should have stayed, she thought. Maybe she should have stayed. Stayed and talked to Danny. And said _what?_ How could she explain all this? How could she even try?

Knowing what she'd done would destroy Danny. Not like there was any way to fix it. She'd made the deal and there was no way back. No, she had to live with it. They both did.

Fuck, it wasn't even possible for Danny to have recognised her. She had never seen _that _coming. And she should have. One more impossible thing from Danny. She should have known. She should have walked away. She should have stayed.

Another glass of whisky vanished and she let her head slump forwards onto the bar.

What a fucking mess. She'd fucked up so badly.

"That was excessively stupid of you," a figure remarked calmly, sliding onto the bar stool next to her. The voice sounded like several people speaking together in perfect unison.

She tensed instantly and didn't look round. "Don't often see you around these parts," she remarked evenly.

The representation of the Faceless shrugged indifferently. "Perhaps we got tired of watching from a distance. Perhaps we wanted to see how you are doing." Its eyes raked down her body and lingered on the glass and it permitted itself a small smile.

"You mean you want to gloat," Sammy translated and she poured herself another glass like she didn't even care.

"Perhaps," it allowed with another tight smile. "You do seem to be quite lost without your pet human."

She swallowed her anger down. The important part here was that maybe they didn't know anything about her meeting Danny again. Maybe they didn't know that Danny had recognised her.

"Was it worth it?" it asked curiously.

"It's not about what's worth it," she said calmly. "It's about what's necessary."

It made a noise that in something else might have been considered a laugh. "Necessary? You wish to talk about what is necessary?"

"No. No, I don't think I do." She started to stand up but the figure grabbed her wrist and held it in an iron grip.

"We wish to talk about what is necessary," it said calmly. "You will sit back down."

In this situation she might have expected someone to pay attention. Whatever else she could say about Terry, his security people were normally hot on the trail of anything that looked like a disturbance. But no one was looking. Safe to say the Faceless didn't want them noticed. "You're cheating," she said softly, sitting down. It didn't let go of her.

"We thought that we would follow your example," it told her. "Was Danny Ocean very pleased to see you again?"

Right. She took a deep breath. "We agreed that you would save Tess' life in exchange for Rusty Ryan's," she said steadily. "I gave up – "

" – you are still clinging to your old 'life'," it told her dispassionately. "Do you even listen to yourself? _Rusty Ryan _was not alive. _You _are not alive. These elaborate games you play only serve to demean you."

"This is in imminent danger of turning into a kids' movie with a heartwarming moral," she said with a wry smile and the figure looked at her with a blankness that only the Faceless could manage. "I don't think either of us are interested in a philosophical debate on the nature of life right now," she went on with a sigh. "The point is I haven't broken our agreement." Right. Even _she _wasn't completely convinced by her argument.

"You spent time with Danny Ocean," it observed.

"I'm not with him now," she pointed out tersely. "I'm not trying to pick up where I left off. There was nothing against me _seeing _him. I still have my duties."

"Danny Ocean knows who you really are," it commented. "Are you aware of that?"

"Also not against our deal," she argued.

"You have acted against the spirit of our agreement," it said levelly.

"But not the letter," she insisted. "You care about what the deal _was _not what happens afterwards."

"Danny Ocean does not seem to be trying to re-establish contact with you," it observed. "Human emotions and attachments are very fleeting of course. Fickle. He seems to be more concerned with his wife than with you."

"As it should be," Sammy said evenly and she didn't let the words hurt her. Fickle was the _last _word that could ever be used to describe Danny.

"Indeed," it nodded. "It appears that you chose correctly in putting his feelings for Tess Ocean above his feelings for Rusty Ryan."

Hadn't exactly been what she'd done. (_Had it?_) She didn't say anything.

"We expect that he would be very upset if we were to have to rescind our part of the deal because of your actions," it said slowly.

"No!" she snapped. She couldn't let Tess die like that. "Listen to me, you twisted sons of bitches, I haven't done anything to break our deal. You go back on your word and there are gonna be consequences. You think I fucked you over before? I was just playing around. You want to see what happens if I'm really angry?"

"You will spare us the threats," it commanded. "Yes, we have no doubt that you could act in a way that would cause us discomfort and inconvenience. You have always been a vicious, merciless, spiteful entity after all. But do you truly think that you can protect all your humans while you do so?"

No. No, she couldn't. At least she couldn't be _sure._

It smiled thinly. "Your petty infatuations have always been a cause for concern," it commented, standing up slowly and walking across the casino floor.

Caught off guard, she hurried after it.

"Perhaps," it mused as they walked past the jangling slot machines. "Perhaps we shall concede that you have not truly broken our agreement. But we think that some sort of penalty should be invoked. You were at great pains to prevent your...'friends'...from being hurt by this. Perhaps losing one of them will teach you something."

Sammy's jaw clenched. "No."

They'd reached the blackjack tables and the figure reached out and took a couple of cards from the dealer. No one reacted.

"The old man or the child," it mused and when it held the cards out they showed pictures of Saul and Linus.

"No," she said again firmly.

"We remember this one," it said slowly, lingering over the photo of Saul. "He is descended from your daughter, is he not? What was her name again..."

The silence was long and expectant and she absolutely had to answer it.

"Rachel," she said unwillingly, her voice small and distant, and some pain never ever went away.

"Yes." It turned and studied her. "Humans are so short lived and fragile, aren't they?"

They were just trying to hurt her. Just trying to twist the knife a little deeper.

And, fuck, was it working. She couldn't think of a damned thing to say.

"As we said," the figure went on. "Your infatuations make you _weak. _They shall serve as a suitable penalty."

"I didn't agree to this," she said softly, her eyes fixed on it's face. "You can't hurt them."

"We were not going to hurt them," the figure told her and the voices were overlapping, an agonising chorus echoing around the casino floor. "They are going to learn what it is like to be forsaken by luck."

A universe of possibilities flashed across Sammy's mind. Pain and misfortune and death and she'd be responsible.

"That's not gonna happen," she said hoarsely.

"Then you would rather break our deal altogether?" it enquired, and the enjoyment was rippling through their voices. "Then Tess Ocean will die."

She couldn't let that happen either. Not _just _for Danny's sake.

"I didn't agree to any penalties," she said again desperately. "You can't enforce it if it wasn't in our agreement."

"Oh, we can," it said softly. "We really can. We are going to make you pay for everything you've done."

"_Not _in the deal," she insisted, and her hand was on its arm. "You want to make me pay, fine. But not like this. _Please._" She closed her eyes for a second. "You want me to beg? You want me on my knees in front of you?"

The figure barely even looked human anymore. "Perhaps," it allowed. "That might be amusing. But for now...perhaps we shall show the mercy you do not. Yes. We will give you another option this time."

It looked over her shoulder at the blackjack table. "She is one of yours, is she not?"

She turned to look. The girl at the blackjack table was looking excited and nervous all at once. Pale blue eyes and a silver nose stud, her hands running through her spiky blue hair over and over again. Rio Bellinger. Twenty three years old, finishing up her second doctorate in applied mathematics and taking time out from her studies to try out a new infallible blackjack system she'd devised.

Rio Bellinger was due to have one of the best nights of her life.

And yes, Rio was hers.

She turned back to the figure. "What about her?"

It smiled. "Tonight she will be...unlucky."

That went against everything she _was. _She _couldn't _do that.

Staring across the room her eyes were fixed on Rio's face. The two possibilities flickered in the air in front of her. A perfect night and Rio walked away with five million dollars of Terry Benedict's money. One false move, one hint of cheating, and there was the punch, the small room downstairs, blood and pain and pleading tears.

"You're asking me – " she began.

" – yes," it agreed. "None of your 'friends' will be hurt. Isn't that so much better?"

No. No, it wasn't. There was no 'better' here. "All you want is for me to...withdraw from her?"

"Yes," it agreed again. "You will let her lose and you won't use your power to interfere."

She imagined Tess. Linus. Saul...any of them. All of them. And she'd never even talked to Rio.

Betraying everything she was. It was an easy decision.

Closing her eyes, she reached out and carefully changed the universe.

The Faceless laughed somewhere behind her and then it vanished and she was alone.

As she watched she saw two of Terry's goons congregate at the corner of the bar, mere feet away from Rio. Ten minutes from now they would punch Rio in the face, slam her against the table, and drag her away and the girl would never get over it.

And Sammy couldn't use her power to interfere.

In her head she could see the look on Danny's face.

She crossed the room and sat at the table, two seats away from Rio and her smile was full of the overt and the flirtatious and the absolutely and unmistakeably obvious.

All eyes here, please.

Three hands. Four. And at no point were the cards she laid down on the table even close to the ones she was dealt.

The dealer was frowning and Rio was staring at her, wide eyed, and Sammy brushed her fingers against her lips and smiled. "The trick," she told Rio softly, "Is to play the game like you have nothing to lose. No matter what."

A second of understanding dawned in Rio's eyes and Sammy laughed and turned her head, standing up to meet the punch.

She fell backwards heavily and there were hands all over her, pulling her up, grasping her neck, and her head was slammed into the table and the blood flowed over her eyes and her wrist was twisted up behind her back and she heard the crack.

Just before she was dragged away she blew a kiss to Rio.

A short forever later and her hands were cuffed to a hook on the ceiling and she was choking on her own blood,

The punching stopped for a while and when she shook her head blurrily, trying to clear it, she saw Terry Benedict standing in front of her.

Today _really _couldn't get much worse.

She let the mocking grin spread across her face. "Napoleon. Looking good."

Terry's face darkened, anger and confusion warring with one another, and he reached out and cupped her cheek thoughtfully, turning her face this way and that. "I do not believe we've met," he commented.

"Why, Terry, I'm hurt," she said smiling dizzily, dazzlingly. "Am I that easily forgotten? I thought you were supposed to have a mind like a steel trap. No wonder everyone says you're losing it."

"I think, perhaps, you do not fully realise your predicament," Terry commented, his hand tightening painfully on her jaw and the anger was alive in his eyes.

He was still calm though. Still standing there like he was holding every card, and she found herself wanting to make him lose it, wanting to push him into reacting and she could imagine the look on Danny's face and she pushed the thought away hard. "Oh? You haven't heard the rumours about you, I guess. Las Vegas casinos are never robbed from, isn't that right? Except yours of course. How much money did you lose again? Can't blame a girl for thinking that all she has to do is walk in and walk out again with what she wants."

"You seem to know a lot about things that do not concern you," Terry said, his eyes narrowed. "Are you alone?"

Yes. And right there was more pain than Terry should ever be able to inflict. "Always," she promised.

He stared at her for a long second, seeking out truth, and she laughed openly in his face.

"Am I supposed to be afraid of you right now?" she demanded mockingly. "Is this act supposed to impress me? Look at you, Napoleon – "

" – don't call me that," Terry hissed, his face a livid purple.

She ignored him. " – Standing there, the lord of all you survey, the big bad fucking wolf in your secret fucking dungeon. You're nothing, Terry. You're – "

The slap was harsh and backhanded and her head rocked backwards and the blood trickled down her chin.

"You are a very stupid girl," Terry said softly. "You come into my place and try to cheat me? Did you really think there wouldn't be consequences?"

"I'm used to consequences," she said dismissively.

Terry laughed shortly. "Then I'll tell my men to make sure it is extra unpleasant for you. Just to drive the message home."

He walked away, snapping his fingers, and the goons crowded around her, crunching their knuckles.

Laughter.

Blood.

Screaming.

(_Danny. Please. Sorry._)

* * *

He gave Tess the time she'd asked for. The first few weeks he stayed in a nearby hotel and he saw her most days. He'd take her for lunch or pick her up after work and it was like they were dating all over again. The days he didn't see her he'd send her presents. Tulips fresh from Amsterdam. Chocolates specially imported from Paris. A book on Caravaggio he'd seen in a little antique book shop he'd known she'd love. A little heart made out of polished driftwood. Simple little gifts to show her he was always thinking of her.

(_Sometimes he caught himself looking at bottles of whisky, old movies, Hershey bars and brightly coloured silk. He always looked away._)

They wandered around museums and art galleries, and she told him what he was looking at and why it was spectacular and he loved hearing her talk.

At night he took her to the restaurants they both loved and sometimes they went dancing and holding her in his arms was wonderous and he didn't know how he could ever have taken this for granted.

Afterwards, he walked her home and left her respectfully outside their front door. This was going to move at the speed she chose.

One afternoon he took her for a lazy picnic in the park. Champagne and smoked salmon, a blanket thrown on a hillside and they lay in the sun, talking together, and it should have been perfect. Should have been. But _he _said something stupid, and _she _overreacted and the sky grew dark as they argued.

She walked away from him.

He let her and it should have ended there.

_Should _have.

In that moment the air was alive with butterflies, dancing through the wind, paper-fragile and alive and everywhere.

Tess gave a cry of surprise and put her hands up to protect her face and hair automatically, and Danny was there instinctively, his arm around her, leading her to the safety of a convenient cave.

"What was _that?_" she asked amazed, staring out the cave mouth at the clouds of whirling red.

He shrugged. "Butterflies," he said simply.

"I've never seen anything like that before," she went on, her voice full of wonder and she leaned back against him, their argument seemingly forgotten.

"I have," he said and the memory was fuzzy.

She laughed. "Oh, you've just seen everything."

"Not everything," he said, and she was so warm, so close to him, and this felt like heaven.

"Do you think it's mating season," Tess asked innocently, and she glared as Danny choked, but really her eyes were dancing with indulgent amusement.

"What were we arguing about anyway?" she asked presently.

"Something that shouldn't have mattered so much," he said softly.

Later, when he walked her home, she rolled her eyes as he said goodnight and pulled him close, kissing him with a world of passion and exasperation.

"Enough time," she said softly. "I want to be with my husband."

He followed her inside and it was just like a dream.

* * *

Sammy leaned on the rickety sink heavily with her good arm, spitting out a mouthful of blood and what looked like half a tooth and she let the water run, let it wash away as best it could.

When she looked in the mirror she saw the bruises and she saw the blood, but she did her best to avoid meeting her reflection's eyes.

Rio. Linus. Saul.

Her broken wrist was cradled against her chest and she could see the dull white of protruding bone.

Tess.

Her dress was lying ripped and abandoned on the bathroom floor at her feet and she could see the scratches across her chest and shoulders, could see the broken ribs, could _feel _it all.

Danny.

She was so fucking alone right now. Like she'd said to Danny. She didn't have _anyone. _

"It's still worth it," she told the mirror in a defiant whisper.

"We are glad you think so."

"You think so."

"Glad you think so."

"Glad," the mirror murmured back.

Damn. A surge of useless anger. "More gloating?" she asked savagely.

"_YES._" They all spoke at once and the word reverberated, echoed around her head, growing louder with each repetition, and it hurt, and her legs buckled under her, and she fell, slumped to her knees in front of the mirror.

"I did what you wanted," she told them dully. "I made sure Rio would have lost. What I did after...I did that the human way." She'd survived that the human way. (_Barely._)

The sound of mocking, malevolent laughter.

"But then you knew that already," she finished and she wasn't even surprised. "This was what you wanted."

"We knew that."

"You did not."

"Did not use."

"Power."

"We knew."

"Power.

"We knew you did not."

She nodded to herself. "So now what?"

"Deal."

"Still stands."

"Our deal still stands."

That was something at least. "But the next time you think I've broken it...or the next time you're bored..."

"Penalties."

"There will always be."

"You will pay."

"There will always be penalties."

Right. She didn't trust herself to say a word.

"You will do anything.""

"Anything we ask."

"You will do."

"We ask."

"Anything."

"_How long do humans live, anyway?"_

That was the endpoint of this hell, of course. Once they had no one else to hold over her. And she could never, ever hope for that.

She got to her feet and smiled brightly at the mirror. "You know what? Fuck you. Tess is alive. Danny's happy. I've won already. And you can't change that."

Ignoring the voices laughing behind her, she turned and walked away.

* * *

Two months and everything was back to normal.

Danny was...contented. He told himself so every day.

* * *

**A/N: Please let me know what you think**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Thinking two more chapters. Maybe. **

* * *

Almost two months and it felt like everything was normal, more or less.

He was with Tess and he was happy (_contented?_) and if he still had some days...most days...If he still found himself waking up in the middle of the night overwhelmed with the pain of what he was missing...well. He knew what that meant now. He knew he was better off without it...Sammy...Rusty..._whoever_.

He'd taken Tess to Venice for a week and by the time they were back he felt like the relationship was almost as strong as before.

Strong enough that he felt comfortable saying yes when Reuben called needing a favour. And he checked a dozen times that Tess really was okay with it, but in the end he found himself in Vegas, looking to get the ownership of Louie's Bar and Grill away from Morgan Starr.

Funny. It was the first time he'd really spent time with his friends since he found out about Rusty. And that knowledge let him see with new eyes.

He wasn't the only one who felt the loss.

Little things. Little moments in the conversation that led to a second of silence and confusion.

"You see the way that guy was looking at you?" Frank said, shaking his head. "Man, I swear, he was about two minutes from starting up that Ocean's Eleven bullshit again."

Danny grinned and said nothing and it wasn't like it was ever _his _idea anyway.

"Ten," Yen said succinctly.

Frank frowned. "What'd I say?"

"Eleven," Basher confirmed. "You said eleven."

There was a moments bewildered silence, surreptitious glances round the room like they were checking to see that they were all here, that no one was somehow missing.

"Ten," Frank said firmly. "Yeah. Ocean's Ten. That's what I meant." He looked uncertain.

Or the time when Livingston was remembering old times and the Spare Hand they'd played on Sarah Mitchell.

"And you should have seen the _look _she gave Dannyand..." His brow creased and there was confusion in his eyes. "You should have seen the look she gave Danny," he finished lamely, but it wasn't right and he almost seemed to know it.

Maybe worst of all was the way Saul's eyes slid past Danny when he walked into the room, looking for someone who wasn't there. Every time the look of weary disappointment in his eyes made him look a little older. Every time Danny's heart broke a little. And now he could begin to understand a little of how Tess must have felt.

Even though they didn't know it, everyone was missing Rusty and that just served to make Danny angrier. None of them had been worth sticking around for? Really?

He kept the damn truth locked up in his head and he worked on being just the same as always, on proving that he didn't _need _Sammy.

Then he came back from a trip to Benny's with Reuben to find Linus sitting on the sofa on his suite, and sitting next to him was a breathtakingly beautiful blonde woman sipping on a chocolate milkshake.

Linus looked up and smiled slightly. "Oh, hi, Danny. This is – "

" – we've met," Danny interrupted woodenly.

* * *

Linus wasn't exactly sure what was going on. Danny had asked him to break into Starr's offices to get the files off his computer, and that had been all going just fine.

They knew Starr always took a long lunch with his mistress on Fridays so he wasn't at all worried about being caught...right up until he heard the doorhandle turning anyway.

He looked around the office desperately, pulling the USB out of the computer. Shouldn't be too obvious that someone had been there as long as he could _hide..._He ducked into the closet quickly and held the door closed and he could see through the gap as Starr walked in and sat down at his desk.

Oh, hell. How had this gone wrong? They'd been sure he wouldn't be back till three at least.

He wondered what the odds were of Starr not wanting anything out of this closet till the end of the day.

He tried _not _to think about his recent discovery that Starr kept a loaded revolver in his top drawer.

An hour or so later and Linus was both bored _and _frightened, and Starr got up and headed for the door. Bathroom break, Linus guessed. Cigarette break if he was lucky.

This was a chance. This was quite probably his _only _chance.

He ran out of the closet and out of the office and he jumped a foot in the air when he heard Starr's cry of shock and anger and he heard Starr run back into the office.

Probably looking for the revolver.

Linus kept running down the corridor, but he knew the door at the end was always locked. The windows off to the side...it was a long way down, but maybe he'd be able to reach the next window along.

He got it open and was just climbing through onto the ledge when a shot rang out behind him and the shock sent him toppling forwards, and he was going to fall...

An arm slammed into his chest and hands were pulling him back onto the ledge and he'd _never _been so relieved.

Someone leaning out of the next window along.

He turned his head to say all the thanks he could manage and he found himself looking at the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

"Hi," he said stupidly and she looked at him quizzically and her arm was wrapped tightly around herself, like saving him had hurt.

"Fire escape," she suggested quickly and she climbed out of the window onto the ledge and started pulling Linus along the side of the building.

"What...?" he began and he didn't even know exactly what he was trying to ask. There were a _lot _of questions.

"Figure you want to avoid Starr," she explained cheerfully and she scrambled over the edge of the fire escape and Linus caught a flash of golden skin as her dress rode up and he averted his gaze quickly, the blush rising deep red in his cheeks.

That was about the point when he ran straight into the metal pole over the top of the fire escape and fell forwards onto the stairs with a groan.

He opened his eyes to see her looking down at him, an expression on her face that wandered somewhere between amusement, concern and confusion. "You okay, kid?" she asked, reaching out a hand to help him up.

He groaned and he wasn't sure if it was pain or embarrassment. "I'm fine," he said, staggering to his feet and proving it by nearly falling down again.

"Uh huh," she nodded, grabbing his shoulder. "Come on. Let's get you back home."

They ran down the stairs, hand in hand, and he was concentrating on not making a complete fool of himself here.

"Think we lost him," she commented at the bottom of the street.

"Who are you?" he managed to ask.

"Sammy Smith," she told him absently and she was standing very close to him, her hand on his chin, peering into his eyes. "You alright? You hit your head pretty hard."

Her mouth was inches and he had to fight down the impulse to kiss her. "Uh..." he said, trying to figure out what she'd asked.

She sighed. "Don't think I should leave you alone," she said. "Come on. I'll get you back to the hotel and we'll find someone to look after you. "

Somehow he found himself going along with her plan.

Maybe at some point he could figure out just who Sammy _was? _

* * *

This was shaping up to be a disaster.

She was comfortably certain that she was still under the radar here...when she'd realised that she might have to intervene she'd gone to all the lengths she could think of to make sure the Faceless would be distracted and absolutely not aware of what was going here.

Besides, she'd had no intention of seeing Danny if she could help it. Plan was to make sure Linus was safe and get the hell out.

And then Linus went and gave himself a concussion.

She really hadn't seen _that _coming.

And there was no one around when they got to the hotel and she might be sure that Linus was going to be just fine but she still didn't want to leave him alone and Linus told her that Danny's suite was grand central and everyone would check in when they came back.

Anyone but Danny. She could only hope. Linus had said that Danny and Reuben were out of town. He wasn't expecting to see them and she _hoped _he was right.

Least the tiny bit of cheating she'd done to make sure she wasn't on any watchlist had worked. They'd walked right past the guy on the door and he hadn't even recognised her. To be fair, the last time he'd seen her she'd been doing her best to bleed on his shoes. Probably she hadn't been so very recognisable.

She glanced sideways quickly as they walked past him. Linus didn't seem to have noticed her reaction.

Danny would have noticed in a second.

One more reason for her to hope that she didn't come face to face with Danny.

In the meantime she listened to Linus' entertaining attempts to trick her into revealing exactly who she was and what she'd been doing in Starr's place.

She tried not to let him see just how much she was enjoying herself. Not that she exactly liked to think about it, but the last time she'd actually really _talked _to someone had been months back with Danny. She was probably appreciating Linus' company more than she ever had before. And it didn't even begin to answer the ache in her chest.

Fuck, maybe the Faceless had a point about her friendships. _Infatuations. _Whatever you wanted to call them. She'd gone centuries before on her own without feeling it, and now she was craving even the slightest scrap of friendly human interaction? What was _wrong _with her? She had to be tougher than this.

She sighed shakily and when Linus turned to her anxiously she shook her head reassuringly and smiled and let him continue telling her about the thing he'd pulled in Brooklyn with Turk.

All she needed was for someone to come in, and she could leave purgatory and go back to hell.

* * *

"We've met," Danny said woodenly and he looked at her, sitting there, not even _glancing _his way, and the anger rose up inside him and he couldn't stop it if he wanted to. "This some new masochistic thing you got going on?"

The glass of milkshake thudding onto the tabletop. The smile that was all things bright and hurt. "Apparently it's not new."

Linus was looking from one to the other of them, blinking. "Uh, guys?" he said slowly. "Am I missing something?"

"Seems to be a lot of hostility in here," Reuben agreed, frowning at Sammy. "And I didn't get the introduction. Reuben Tishkoff."

"Sammy Smith," she said and she stood up slowly and her eyes were trained on the far wall. "And I think I should be going." She started walking towards the door, glancing aside as she walked past Danny. "Linus hit his head. I think he's okay but I didn't want to leave him alone. Now you're back I'll just – "

Suddenly absolutely certain that he didn't want her to walk out, Danny reached out and grabbed her wrist tightly.

She stilled instantly tense and...there was _something. _Danny's eyes narrowed and he carefully released her. She didn't move. "Reuben, you want to take Linus to get checked out?"

"I'm fine, really," Linus protested. "I just wasn't looking where I was going." Inexplicably he blushed. "Uh, because I was looking for Starr."

Starr? Fuck, he wasn't supposed to be there.

"He was pretty out of it for a moment or two," Sammy told him, and now she was looking at him, like they were on the same side.

He nodded. "Reuben?"

"You going to be okay, Danny?" Reuben asked in a low voice as he ushered Linus to his feet.

Somehow the idea that he needed protecting from her...he could see the rich misery in her eyes, the resignation.

"It's fine, Reuben," he said assuredly. "We just need to talk."

"If you're sure," Reuben said doubtfully.

He wasn't sure. But the more he looked at her the more his anger died away, leaving only the hurt and the confusion. More than anything he wanted answers.

"Uh, Sammy?" Linus asked awkwardly. "Could I maybe have a word with you?"

Sammy's eyes were still locked on Danny's and she didn't look round. "What's up, kid?"

"Do you want to maybe have dinner with me sometime?" Linus blurted out.

A long moment of blinking incredulity and they both slowly turned to stare at him.

"That would be a no then," Linus said hastily. "Sorry." He quickly headed for the door and Reuben followed still chuckling.

The door closed behind them.

"I can't stay long," Sammy said abruptly, moving away from him. "Starr came after Linus. I got in the way. I don't think Starr got a good look at him. That's about it."

"Starr wasn't supposed to be there," Danny pointed out.

She raised an eyebrow. "Really."

"I checked it out," Danny insisted. "He has dinner with his mistress every Friday – "

" – except every two months his mistress goes to the spa instead," Sammy interrupted. "Leaving Starr taking a short break and heading back to the office where Linus was waiting."

"Oh." He took a deep breath. He hadn't known that. He _should _have known that. As it was he'd put Linus in danger, and that was unacceptable.

"You need to find yourself a good detail guy, Danny," Sammy said wearily.

And that wasn't _fair _and the anger swelled up all over again. "Uh huh. You happen to know someone? Because I think I used to know someone but then he turned into a woman I don't know."

The words hung in the air. He was breathing heavily.

"Right," she said dully. "We done? Because I really should go."

"That...that wasn't what I wanted to say," he admitted. He sighed. "I hurt you."

She shot him a look that was all things puzzled. "I'll live," she said dryly.

"No." He swallowed hard. "I mean I _hurt _you. When I grabbed your arm. I saw what you were trying to hide."

"Oh that." She shrugged dismissively. "'s nothing. I'm fine."

He looked at the way she was standing. Looked at the distant, casual smile. "Do I even want to ask how often I've heard that before?"

The smile flickered. "A few times, maybe."

"Let me see," he requested softly. "Please."

She gave no answer but she didn't stop him when he stepped forwards and pulled her sleeve up.

The wrist was scarred and mottled with fading bruises and the flesh beneath looked somehow wrong.

"It's not as bad as it looks, Danny," she said quietly, pulling her sleeve down again. "Plaster cast got taken off a few days ago. It's fine. I'll heal."

"What else?" he asked, looking at her, _willing _her to tell him.

She sighed and looked away. "It was bad, okay? I survived."

He could imagine what _bad _meant and he shivered. And she hadn't exactly answered the question, but there were other things on his mind. "Who?" He'd heard that tightness in his own voice before, he knew that. He just didn't remember _when. _

Another sigh. "Danny, it wasn't...I set myself up for it, okay? I had to."

The pain and misery in her voice actually _hurt _him, and he stepped closer and carefully laid a hand on her shoulder and he was still angry with her, still hurt and confused, but the simple truth was no matter what, he didn't like seeing her unhappy.

For a moment he thought she was crying, but when she stepped away from him her eyes were dry and blank. "I need to go, Danny. I'm sorry. I wasn't planning on seeing you."

"Why?" he demanded.

She shook her head and said nothing.

He tried another tack. "I told you once if you were in trouble I'd help you. You think that's changed?"

"How's Tess?" she asked suddenly.

"She's doing fine," Danny said, caught off guard. "We're back together." He thought of the butterflies. "But then you already know that, don't you?"

She didn't give any hint of confirmation. "You tell her about – "

" – yes," Danny said, wincing at the memory.

"And you really think that it's a good idea to be here talking to me?" she pointed out. Her lips quirked humourlessly. "Go home to Tess, Danny. I swear you won't see me again."

"Until the next time I fuck up, right?" he asked quietly. "You hadn't been here Linus would have died, right?"

"No," she denied quickly.

He looked at her.

"He wouldn't have walked again," she said with a sigh. "But he wouldn't have died."

He shuddered at the thought. They'd come so close... "Thank you."

She glared at him briefly. "Don't – "

" – I know," he cut in. "I know." He looked at her for a long moment. "You're not going to walk out of my life, are you? The next time we're in trouble, you'll be there."

She sat down heavily on the sofa. "Yeah," she agreed.

"So why did you leave at all?" he demanded harshly. "What's the point? You get a kick out of fucking with us, is that it?"

"Something like that," she said, her head buried in her hands.

No. No, that wasn't what had happened. He stared for a long second and then he carefully crossed the room and knelt down in front of her, his hand on her knee. "Tell me, Sam. Please."

"I _can't_," she said, her voice muffled.

"Look at me," he ordered. "Look at me and tell me you left because you wanted to."

She didn't even try to lie. "Fuck," she muttered.

"So..." He frowned, working it out in his head. "You left and now someone's hurting you..." His mouth was set. "Someone made you leave, didn't they. They made you make me forget about you. So you'd be alone. So they could hurt you." He was going to find out who _they _were and he was going to make them pay.

"No," she denied instantly. "It wasn't like that. Just _leave _it, Danny."

Yeah. That was _never _going to happen and they both knew it. "Tell me what it was like then?" he asked softly. "Why, Sammy?"

She looked at him for a long moment and shook her head. "I can't tell you."

He reached out and pulled up her sleeve again. "Can you tell me that you're not going to get hurt again?"

"Nah. That's over," she said and they could both hear the desperation in the lie.

Danny stared at her. "And you're just going to leave now, right?"

She looked back at him squarely. "That's right."

He nodded. "And, what, I'm supposed to just be content knowing that you're out there somewhere, getting hurt? You think I'm not going to care? You think I'm not going to go looking for answers?"

She stood up abruptly, pushing past him and for a long moment she stood staring out the window, not looking at him, not saying a word. "It wasn't me that wiped your memory," she said at last. "But I could. I could make sure that you don't remember me at all. No left over feelings. No strange feeling of loss. Just...nothing."

Right. He forced himself to stay calm. Forced himself not to react out of hurt and instinct. "And that would keep me safe? And that would make me happy? "

Sammy's shoulders were hunched in, like she was curling in on herself. "You wouldn't be miserable."

He nodded and walked slowly across the room until he was standing inches away from her and he could see her looking at him through their reflections in the window. "You could do that," he said softly. "Of course you could do that. And then deep down we'd both always know _exactly _what I meant to you, wouldn't we? Deep down, we'd both know that you _never_ saw me as your equal." He could see her eyes in the reflection. Wide and wild and horrified. He was merciless. "Twenty three years and I'm...what? Some kind of pet? Fun enough while it lasts, but easy to abandon when the chips are down?"

"No!" Her hand thudded dully against the wall. There was a long moment's silence. "You don't fight fair," she said at last.

"You haven't exactly left me a lot of choice," he pointed out gently. "Tell me, Sammy. Please."

She took a deep breath and turned to face him and her hand was on his and the _look _on her face...he braced himself. Promised himself he was ready for anything. "You remember a year back? Tess was in that car accident?"

That wasn't what he'd been expecting to hear. He remembered the phone call and the feeling of dread and the look on the doctor's face... "Yeah. She was fine though."

He stopped short at the look on Sammy's face. The way she wouldn't meet his eyes.

_No. _

Oh, God, no.

"She would have died," Sammy confirmed miserably. "You asked me for help and I couldn't..." Her fists were clenched tightly. "I couldn't," she said simply. "But I knew something who could."

There were words hovering in the very edges of Danny's consciousness. Words he hadn't truly heard but somehow still remembered. "You made a deal," he said hollowly.

She nodded slowly. "Yeah."

"With who?" he asked.

"No one you know," she said with a shrug. "They like to play games. All very Seventh Seal I s'ppose. Only they weren't about to give me that option."

He was about to ask why not but then it hit him. "They can't beat you, can they? Not fairly."

"Fair has nothing to do with it," she returned immediately. "But yeah. They weren't going to win any game of chance. So I made a deal." She looked at him pleadingly. "It's not like it's what I offered them going in, Danny. Leaving you wasn't my first choice. Nowhere close."

Not something he could think about right now. "What – "

" – Rusty Ryan's life in exchange for Tess'," she explained simply. "More or less. Rusty...never existed and Tess gets to live."

He looked at her, stony-faced.

"I'm still alive, Danny," she offered quietly. "No one died and that was the best I could do."

"You didn't tell me." The words were bitten off and God! He was almost more angry _now _than he had been when he thought she'd stolen his memories.

She glared at him. "You want to make that choice?"

"And this?" he demanded, his hand hovering over her wrist. "You want to try explaining where this comes in?"

She pulled her arm away, tucking it protectively against her chest. "They knew I met with you. They weren't happy. They tried to say I'd broken the deal. Tried to introduce some sort of penalty clause." Her jaw was set. "Threatened Saul and Linus. Then they said that they'd let me out of it if I..." She broke off, shaking her head.

"If you what?" he prompted, as gently as he could.

For a moment he wasn't sure she would tell him and her fingers were rubbing furiously around her mouth. "You remember what I am, right?" she said at last.

He nodded slowly. "It isn't _what _you are I care about though," he said in a low voice, prompted by some forgotten memory, and the tiny smile that came his way was reward enough.

"There was this girl," she explained slowly. "She was...doesn't exactly matter. Point was, she was going to have a good night. And they told me to change things so she _lost. _She'd have got caught and Te..." She hesitated. "And the people who caught her would have hurt her." She looked away from him blindly and when she spoke it was in a whisper. "And I did what they asked."

He could hear the agony in her voice and he couldn't stand it. "No you didn't," he said softly. "You got in the way, didn't you? Made sure they hurt you instead."

He could see the scene in his head, the broad picture anyway. Could see her fighting against the demands with the only weapon she had. Could see her not even hesitating, could see fists and boots and blood and he wanted again to demand a name.

She nodded tightly. "I had to, Danny."

And that wasn't the end of the story. Not quite.

"They're going to try something like this again, aren't they?"

She nodded again and the misery was written openly on her face.

"For how long?" he demanded.

"Forever, give or take," she said with a short, helpless shrug. "I've got no choice."

He hated the exhaustion and desperation in her voice, and he wasn't even thinking when he reached out and took her into his arms, soft, reassuring kisses brushing across her face. "Oh, Rus'."

"You see, Danny?" she said after a few moments. "I've got to do what they say."

His hand was on her cheek and he tilted her face up to look at him. "I see we're going to stop them," he said firmly and for a moment hope shone in her eyes.

* * *

**A/N: Please let me know what you think.**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Two more chapters. Though I _may _have said that last chapter. And acknowledgement to Meatloaf for line. **

* * *

Sammy talked for hours, telling Danny everything she could think of about the Faceless. Wasn't that she necessarily thought there was anything Danny could do, but she couldn't bring herself to walk away from Danny now. What Danny had said about her not seeing him as an equal...well, it had _hurt. _Apparently he didn't need to know her to know her.

"They're confident," Danny remarked thoughtfully when she'd finally finished.

"Yeah," she agreed.

"Overconfident," Danny added, catching her eye.

"Mmmm," she replied, unconvinced. Wasn't like she could exactly see where they were wrong. She wasn't going to let them hurt anyone else after all.

"You think if we could get them to promise to call this thing off they'd stick to it?" Danny asked.

"Yes," she said at once. "They like to act like the rules are everything. Might twist them, but they're never gonna break their word that blatantly."

Danny nodded. "Maybe we can work with that. Make another deal. Give them something they want more."

Sammy's brow creased. "Like _what?_"

"We'll need to see," Danny said with a shrug. "There must be something they want. Something we can do for them, maybe. You said they didn't like to work in the real world much, maybe they need something done here."

There was a thought Danny wasn't sharing. A plan he was turning over in the back of his mind. Something he wasn't letting himself think about. Suspicion rose up inside her. Something Danny didn't want her to know. Something..._fuck. _"_Danny,_" she breathed, horrified.

Danny looked at her and his expression was a mixture of guilt and mulish determination. "Tess is _my _wife. If anyone is going to give their life for her...it should have been me all along."

"No," Sammy said tersely. Not happening.

"And you..." Danny was staring at her. "I know you but I don't _remember _you. And they hurt you, Sammy, and they're going to carry on hurting you. And it's going to get worse, don't think I don't know that. They have all the time in the world, if they're...enjoying themselves...they're going to make it worse each time. People like that always do. You think I can live with that?"

A thousand words of denial and outrage rose up on her tongue, but she could see the agony in Danny's eyes. No. No, Danny couldn't live with that. "I'm not going to let you throw your life away," she said instead.

"Why is it alright for you?" he demanded.

She sighed. "Because you give your life away you're _dead. _I'm just – "

" – _inconvenienced_?" Danny's mouth was twisted. "Oh, right then. So you're free to come back any time you like then? You're not looking over your shoulder right now because you're afraid that they might show up and – "

" – but I'm not dead," she cut in.

"You're not living either," Danny said, his voice soft and intense. "And don't pretend that was the logic here. You'd have done the same thing even if it killed you, wouldn't you?"

Impossible to argue against that and they both knew it. "Just because it isn't what I based my decision on doesn't mean it's not still true," she said at last.

"It should have been me," Danny said again.

"No," she said simply.

Danny stood in front of her, his hand gripping her arm tightly. "Take me to them," he demanded. "Let me make my own damn deal."

She gazed at him for a long time and her heart was breaking. "I would do anything for you. But I won't do that."

A beat and Danny was staring at her incredulously. "You're giving me classic rock songs? _Please _Sammy. I need to do this."

"No, Danny," she said again firmly. "It's not gonna happen."

Danny opened his mouth, ready with a new range of arguments but Sammy cut him off ruthlessly. "You want to try thinking about Tess?" she asked.

"What?" Danny looked stricken.

Sammy hardened her heart and pressed on. "You're talking about taking her husband away from her again. Permanently this time. Don't you think she's gone through enough? You say I should've talked to you before I made the deal. Doesn't that mean you should talk to Tess right now?"

"It's not – " Danny tried

Sammy interrupted him, holding out her cell phone. " – Go on. Call her. Tell her that you want to throw your life away for a one night stand you don't even know."

"You're not a one night stand," Danny protested.

"You're not going to call Tess," Sammy answered.

"No." Danny sighed wearily. "So where does that leave us? We back to you lobotomising me and walking away?"

No. No, she didn't think she could ever have done that. Even though she still thought that maybe it was the pragmatic thing to do, she doubted she could've gone through with it. Somewhere along the line, Danny's sentimental streak had rubbed off on her. "Come up with an idea that's not just throwing your life away and we'll make it work," she offered.

"I want you back. And I want Tess," Danny said with quiet desperation.

"We don't have much time," Sammy said regretfully. "I'm under the radar now but that's not gonna last forever. And Linus and Reuben just left you alone with someone they don't know and you were mad at. There's gonna be _someone _coming by to make sure I haven't killed you soon enough."

"Alright." Danny closed his eyes for a long moment. "So is there anything that we can offer them in a deal? Anything they want more than to see you suffer?"

Silently, she shook her head.

Without opening his eyes, Danny nodded. "Then that's what we'll have to use. You said they like to play games. We can – "

" – _oh._" She could see the shape of the plan in Danny's head. "Oh, that's – "

" – I know," Danny agreed, his eyes fixed on her now. "I know. But you said if I wasn't throwing my life away...this is a chance at least."

She still wasn't convinced.

"Look," Danny said with a sigh. "You don't want to help me, that's fine. But I need you and I need Tess and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. You've known me twenty three years. You really think that I can't find a way to get to them myself? Even if that means sacrificing a chicken at the crossroads at midnight next Halloween, I'll find a way."

Damn. She could hear the sincerity in Danny's voice. And she had no doubt that he meant every word. And if the Faceless knew Danny was looking for them...they'd play them against each other to their hearts' content.

Danny looked at her pleadingly. "We've got to play the game – "

" – like we got nothing to lose," Sammy finished with a sigh.

"I've said that before, huh," Danny said with a sad smile.

"Twenty three years ago," she confirmed. She stared at Danny for a long moment.

They could make this work. Yes, the stakes were unbearably high, but they had taken on more watchful marks. The Faceless were confident that they'd already won. They were arrogant and dismissive and over-confident. They'd never consider the possibility that they might lose until it was too late, and they'd be too busy twisting the knife to see the play coming.

She smiled. "Alright. Let's do this. If only to spare the chickens."

* * *

Danny gazed at the mirror unhappily. "Really?"

"Uh huh," Sammy nodded, and at least the smile was sympathetic.

"You're not winding me up?" he suggested hopefully.

"No," she said patiently. "Sorry."

"Right." He glanced back at the mirror. "Last time you just sort of vanished."

"That's..." Her head was tilted to one side like she was trying to figure out the best way to explain something. "That's when I'm just...well, vanishing. When I stop being...me...and just become abstract. Omnipresent."

"Huh." Wasn't like he exactly forgot who he was talking to, but some things were still difficult to get his head around. "What does it feel like?" he asked, before he even thought to wonder if that was the sort of question he had the right to ask.

She smiled at him and her eyes were thoughtful. "Feels like...'s like the first time you set foot on the strip. And nothing and everything looks familiar and it feels like you're standing in the centre of the whole world, and nothing and no one can touch you, and time is just waiting for you to take your next breath." She shrugged. "Feels kind of like that."

"Huh." Danny smiled again and somewhere in his head he was wondering why Sammy ever chose to give that up.

"Yeah, well," she shrugged. "Can't take you that way. Needs to be the Alice option.

And that brought Danny back to staring at the mirror and he didn't even know why the idea bothered him so much. Just that he didn't know how possible this all really was.

"You want to maybe phone Tess before we leave?" Sammy suggested quietly.

Danny could hear the unspoken addendum. _Just in case. _There might not be another opportunity.

Thing was, he might not be throwing his life away, but that didn't mean he could explain this to Tess. "What am I going to say?" he asked lightly. "Sorry Tess, I'm off to Wonderland with an alliteration-fetishist? Talk to you in a few hours, or days, or weeks?"

Sammy's grimace was sympathetic but all she said was "Not Wonderland."

Danny raised an eyebrow.

"Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are two separate books," she explained. "Two different places. Wonderland would be – "

" – rabbit hole," Danny nodded understandingly. "Which makes _you _the rabbit."

"And you Alice," Sammy returned sweetly.

Straight-faced, Danny looked her up and down, his gaze lingering on her hair, her eyes. "Actually, throw in a hairband and – "

" – well, if it's marked 'eat me', I'll eat it," she assured him.

Danny choked. "That's good to know," he said, recovering slightly. He paused for a moment because when he'd been looking at her something had struck him again. "Can you show me what you looked like as Rusty?"

"No," she said regretfully, after a second. "I can't _be _him and I don't have any way to show you a picture or anything. You don't remember, huh?"

He shook his head. "I remember feelings. That's about it."

There was another brief silence and he could see the sorrow in her eyes. "I do not have an alliteration fetish by the way," she said, and Danny jumped on the attempt to lighten the mood.

"Sure," he agreed amiably. "I mean, Rusty Ryan, Sammy Smith...that's just coincidence, right?"

"Right," she nodded with a smile.

He stole a glance sideways. "You know, I can't help but wonder – "

" – Quirinus Quirrell," she told him seriously.

He grinned. "Really."

"No," she answered with a grin of her own.

"Shame. Bet you'd look great in a turban." He paused. "I saw that movie with you...with Rusty, didn't I?" He remembered the hotel room with the TV that only showed one channel, remembered a bottle of dubious provenance that had no label but tasted vaguely of aniseed, remembered discussing the air-speed velocity of a laden owl, and he remembered that it had been him and Linus, but there he doubted his own memory.

"Yeah," she said softly, and her smile had vanished. "We were in England, two or three years back. Place called Scunthorpe. Some old friend of Bash's had gone missing. We were undercover...you said it was the worst hotel you'd stayed in in _years._"

The memory was in his head, but he still couldn't see Rusty there. Mostly, when he remembered Billy Moss and Caleb Hardy, he was on his own through the whole thing. Even now, he remembered being on his own most of his life.

Strange to look at Sammy and know he _hadn't _been.

How could he not want his life back?

"So how do we do this?" he asked, looking at the mirror again.

"Hold my hand," she said and he did so immediately. "It'll only seem like a second, but I think you're... it's gonna feel weird at least. Just hold tight and don't let go for a second."

She _thought. _He looked at her. "You've never – "

" – humans don't," she said quietly. "Far as I know, it's never been done before. Never been tried."

Oh. "I trust you," he said, looking straight at her. He knew Sammy wouldn't do anything that might endanger him.

In answer, she just squeezed his hand. "Don't let go," she emphasised again.

"What happens if I do?" he asked.

She smiled but her eyes were tense. "I find you again."

He nodded and he believed her, and what they were planning was insane and maybe impossible, and her hand was warm in his and there were so many things that he wanted to say, so many things he _should _say, and he leaned forwards and gently pressed his lips against hers.

Wasn't like last time. This was soft and gentle and chaste, and she leaned in against him, warm and close and searching, and it was comfort and comforting, trust and hope and love and affection, and the last thing it was about was sex.

They broke apart and they didn't say anything. There was no need to say anything.

Sammy reached out with her other hand and her fingers traced over the mirror's surface and it rippled under her touch.

Danny took a deep breath and followed Sammy into the mirror.

Was like nothing he had ever felt before. The world around him was vast and empty, reflecting echoes back on him, back on _them _and he couldn't tell what was real, couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't _feel. _There was no light, no air, no time, no world, no _him._ He couldn't feel his own body. Couldn't feel anything except RustySammy's hand in his, holding him, leading him, protecting him.

Danny was safe because heshe was there.

His feet touched solid ground and immediately he was grasping Sammy's arms, drawing strength from the real and the unshakeable, and _he _was shaking, shivering, and he was gasping for breath and the cold, mist-like air was burning his lungs.

"I've got you," Sammy murmured, and her hands were on his shoulders, steadying him, and her mouth was pressed against him, warming him, and this at least was real.

"Sweet."

"That is."

"Touching."

"Is Sweet."

The scornful whisper came from all around them. From everywhere and nowhere at once.

He stood apart from Sammy immediately, looking round automatically for the source of the voices. He didn't see anything. Sammy had _told _him he wouldn't see anything.

"What have you"

"Have you"

"What have you done?"

"You cannot

"Have you done?"

"Human"

"Pet"

"You cannot bring your pet human here."

"Done?"

They sounded angry. Danny smiled. "I wanted to talk to you."

They ignored him. Oh, they carried on talking but he could _feel _that all their oppressive attention was on Rusty...Sammy...huh. A sudden epiphany of memory. He could _remember_.Everything. He remembered living his life alone and at the same time he remembered every moment he'd ever spent with Rusty, remembered a life time of love and adventure and the sensation was overwhelming, giddily schizophrenic. Dreams of things that had happened and had never happened and might have never happened danced through his head. He took a deep breath; he didn't have time to deal with it right now, because right now the Faceless were concentrating on Sammy and dismissing him as nothing, and that might be exactly what they'd expected and what they'd planned, but there was still cold fury in Sammy's eyes.

Danny recognised that look. He'd seen it in the mirror every time someone looked past Rusty to talk to _him._

"You dare"

"Too far

"Defy us?"

"You go too far"

"Dare!"

"You dare to defy us?"

"Are you so eager to be hurt again?"

"See your little humans die."

Sammy's jaw was clenched tight and Danny carefully laid a hand on her arm and he knew their reactions were being studied and considered. "Thought we could talk," Sammy said softly.

A sound that might have been laughter, and right in front of Danny's eyes a figure coalesced out of the swirling mist, indistinct and unremarkable, dressed in a grey suit.

He bit back a cry as it glided past and he caught his first sight of where its face should be. There was _nothing._

"You have come to talk?" the figure asked, standing too close to Sammy and Danny longed to shove it away. "Have you come to beg our forgiveness? Our mercy? The last time we spoke you were on your knees before us. Perhaps your human would enjoy a repeat performance?"

Danny tensed at the thought and the snarl rose up unbidden in his throat. This was the..._thing_...that had seen Tess dying and used it, used her. This was the monster that had stolen Rusty away, that had hounded Sammy, trapped her, hurt her. And he had to stand here and smile politely and ask for its indulgence.

"I asked Sammy to take me here," Danny said, his voice carrying clear through the empty world. "You stole my life from me. I want it back."

It turned its head and stared at him without eyes. "You? You are playing in a world you do not understand, Danny Ocean. Go home while you still can."

He smiled at it carelessly. "I want my life back," he said again. "I want Tess to live and I want you to call off Rusty's half of the deal, and you to leave us all alone. You like to play games, don't you? Let's play for it."

The Faceless deliberately turned its back on him, stepping further into Sammy's personal space. "Your human is amusing," it murmured. "I can see why you missed him so. You should send him home to his lovely wife and keep him safe. Or are you tired of him? Have you brought him here for sport?"

"Danny makes his own choices," Sammy said coolly.

"Humans do not come here," it said, an edge of danger in its voice. "You will come to regret this decision we are sure." It reached out and trailed a claw-like finger down the side of Sammy's face, and Danny's fists were clenched. "What do you hope to gain from this? You will fail and we will be waiting."

"Always so sure of yourself," Sammy murmured, not even attempting to move away from its touch. "Didn't you say the same thing in Salzburg?"

The cry was like nothing Danny had ever heard before. A high, metallic noise of rage and frustration and twisted fury and it came from the air around them.

"I don't think they like you mentioning Salzburg," Danny told him in a stage whisper.

"You think?" Sammy replied, eyebrows raised, and the hand was still against her face. She turned to address the figure. "I'm sorry, do you not like remembering how I – "

" – we have tried to be civilised," it hissed.

"Civilised."

"Tried."

"We have tried," the darkness murmured.

"Once again you have thrown our mercy and our _pity _back in our face," it continued, calmer now, and its voice was legion. "We will let your human play for his life. And you can deal and we will watch your face as he loses everything."

Danny smiled. "I don't lose."

Laughter again, sharp and echoing. "You do not lose because you have luck on your side. When it matters most, she will not help you."

Its words fell with the weight of truth.

Danny stared at Sammy and Sammy's eyes were fixed on the ground, and the Faceless laughed again with smug and awful glee.

* * *

They followed the Faceless leisurely as it led them deeper into the mists and the decor hadn't improved any since the last time Sammy was here. Still, it seemed like everything was working. Of course, what she _didn't _want to think about was just how bad things were gonna get if Danny lost.

The Faceless were right about one thing. She couldn't help Danny. But she'd already told Danny that. If only she was certain that Danny had believed her.

Talking of Danny, he was looking around himself disconsolately.

"What?" she asked softly.

"Kind of flat, isn't it?" he said, his lips pursed. "Always figured a magic kingdom – "

" – _magic kingdom?" _she interrupted, amused.

Danny ignored her. "Always figured it would be more interesting."

She looked around thoughtfully. Swirling mist, ominously moving shadows, softly howling winds, distant screams of torment... "Not exactly Disney," she allowed.

"Well, maybe – " Danny began.

"- Fantasia," she nodded.

"Not the dancing elephants," he agreed.

"Boring minds lead to boring landscapes," she said with a grin, and carefully she reached out and then they were following a golden path, surrounded by green green grass and a clear, free-flowing brook. Frighteningly fluffy rabbits gazed curiously up at them as they walked past. "Better?" she asked innocently.

Danny choked. "Think I preferred the bleak," he commented, sounding faintly nauseated.

She sighed. "No pleasing some people," she lamented, straight-faced, and the woodlands dissolved back into the desolate mists.

She could _feel _the Faceless' rage. All directed at her. Just like it should be.

There was a raised platform in the distance, rising up out of the mists like a heavy black altar. She could see the table set out on it. Three chairs.

Another step and they were there and a single, golden shining poker chip was lying at one of the places, a dull empty one at the place opposite, and the cards lay fallen between them. Waiting.

"So here we are," the representative of the Faceless announced, turning to face them.

"We are here," the mists murmured, echoed.

"Are you ready, human?" it demanded. "You wanted to win back your petty little life with Tess Ocean and Rusty Ryan at your side." It's voice was twisted with disgust. "We have our stake on the table." It gestured towards the shining chip. "The only wager we will accept in return is your own life. Your own soul and your own memories. Do you agree to our terms?"

Danny was staring at the table fixedly, his face blank and expressionless. She glanced at him worriedly and she wanted to remind him what was at stake, wanted to tell him that it wasn't too late. If he left now, she could keep the Faceless from going after him. He turned to her at the thought, his lips quirked. "Really, Rus'? After all this time?"

"I want you safe," she returned.

"You want me happy," he corrected softly and he stepped forwards and gently laid a single fingertip on the empty chip.

It started shining, a bright white light, with all the strength and brilliance she'd ever seen.

Danny smiled. "Let's play."


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Sorry that this chapter took so long. There's been an interesting mix of real life, computer problems, real life computer problems, and sheer apathy to blame, I'm afraid.** **And this is the penultimate chapter! Not long to go at all.**

* * *

The Faceless looked at them coldly and stood behind its seat. "Let us begin this farce."

Its voice might be hollow and inhuman, but Danny could still hear the contempt and derision. Like it couldn't even imagine the possibility of it losing.

Overconfidence. One of the qualities he most looked for in a mark.

Of course, it was one of his failings too.

He smiled carelessly. "But we're not ready to begin yet, are we?"

It looked at him sharply. "What do you mean, Danny Ocean?"

He didn't like the way it said his name. It sounded...almost possessive. Like it knew him. Like it knew everything about him. Still he kept smiling, aware of Sammy leaning on the back of her chair and saying nothing. Right now, this was his show and his alone. He picked up the white chip. "This. This isn't the full worth of my stake."

The snort was short and derisive. "Your _stake _is worth exactly what you put into it. If your life isn't as valuable as you'd like, that is hardly our concern."

"Not what I meant," he said patiently. "The thing is, my life? Not the only thing on the table." He leaned forwards, his eyes on it, intense and focused, _compelling _it to listen to him. "And my life isn't even what you're interested in now, is it?"

"Danny!" Sammy cut in, short and urgent and pleading.

This time, he could feel its attention focused on him, could feel the thoughtful amusement. "What _do _you mean, Danny Ocean?" it asked softly.

And now this was the part that he hated. This was the part that made him feel sick inside, that made him feel like he was betraying everything he...everything _they _were. "You want to hurt Sammy, right?"

It looked blankly at him. "Her name is not really Sammy."

Right now it was. Although that really wasn't the point. "But you want to hurt her, right? You want to make her suffer."

"We do not _want _as you understand it," the Faceless said slowly. "But it brings us a certain...satisfaction. Yes."

A certain satisfaction. He felt the chill of anger rushing down his spine. Oh, he could hear the satisfaction alright. The _pleasure._ Whatever it said, it was enjoying every minute of this. It had taken joy in tormenting Sammy and unless he put an end to it – here and now! – it was never, ever going to stop.

"If I lose everything, you take everything, right?" he asked. "My memories, my life, my soul...everything I've ever felt about anyone. Everything I've ever been. I won't exist and no one will remember me. That's right, isn't it?"

There was no mouth. And yet the smile was vicious. "That's right," it agreed. "That is what will happen when we win."

He'd already known that. But he had to say it out loud.

"Sammy?" he asked, his voice soft and ruthless and hurtful. "How would that make you feel?"

For a long moment she just looked at him, her eyes angry, her mouth set, and she said _nothing._

The Faceless were watching her too.

"How would that."

"Feel."

"Make you feel."

"How would that make you feel," the mist whispered.

She ignored it. She looked at Danny instead, her teeth sinking lightly into her lip. "Don't."

"How would it make you feel, Sammy?" he pressed remorselessly, and he needed an answer to the question, needed the truth, and the Faceless were hanging on every word.

For a long moment she closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she was looking straight at him, and there was agonised love in her eyes. She spoke in a whisper. "Losing you would be the worst thing that could happen to me. Losing you like that...it would be like the world ended and no one noticed. Like the sun just went out one day. And knowing that it was because of me...that it was my fault...I think that would kill me a little more every day until the end of time."

"It would hurt?" the Faceless asked slowly.

She didn't look away from Danny. Her eyes were dark with gentle hell and Danny was _sorry. _"Oh, yes."

He turned away. "So you see? This," He held up the chip. "This just doesn't represent everything I'm betting. Two souls for the price of one. You're getting a good deal."

It inclined its head. "She does not have a soul. But we take your point." It tapped the table lightly and another identical shimmering white chip appeared beside his.

He didn't let anything show on his face. Most of all, he didn't look at Sammy.

"And _now _we will begin," the Faceless announced portentously.

Danny shook his head. "I don't think so."

It paused. "What?"

"Seems to me that you aren't matching my stake," he said softly, gesturing the one solitary golden chip opposite them. "Are you trying to cheat me?"

"_We _do not cheat," it snapped, outraged.

"Of course you do," Sammy said, smiling sharply. "Everyone cheats."

It turned its head, scowling darkly at her. "We do not cheat," it said again. "We will match your stake. We can bet riches that – "

" – no," Danny said levelly. "Not good enough."

There was a long silence and the mists drew in around them, the sky above grew dark and angry and the Faceless were watching him.

"Not good."

"Enough."

"Good enough."

"Not good enough?" it repeated, its voice soft and echoing.

"You want to play, you're gonna have to give something that matters. Same stake me and Sam have in this. Your life. Your memories. Whatever passes for your soul." He smiled coldly. "Make the bet."

"This is not the way we operate," it said slowly. "This game is played by our rules."

"But you want what's on the table, don't you?" Danny said calmly. "My life. Sammy's...That's what you _want._ And if that's what you want, you're going to have to play for it. So come on. Ante up. It's time to put your life where your mouth is." He waited a second, head cocked to the side. "Unless of course you want to back down?"

"We will not back down!" it snapped and the rage was whispering through the air. It pulled a chip out of the air and squeezed it tightly between its fist, and when it tossed the chip down onto the table it glowed with ruby-red light. "There. Now we will play, Danny Ocean, and your best friend will deal the cards that will steal your life away."

He nodded and sat down, leaning back casually in his seat like he hadn't a care in the world.

The Faceless sat down and waited, expressionless and impatient and malevolent.

Sammy settled down in the dealer's chair, and pulled the cards over to her and started cutting them.

Danny clicked the chips together thoughtfully and didn't look at the Faceless. Instead he looked at Sammy. "Can you change these down for me?" he asked, like he was sitting at any other table, in any other game.

She nodded and touched the chips lightly and suddenly he had piles of them in front of him. Little white chips of memory and emotion and thoughts...his life in neat stacks.

He reached out and touched one gently with the very tip of his forefinger.

(_Tess stood smiling at him, bright tears shining in her eyes, the flowers clasped tightly in her hands like she was holding onto them for dear life. Danny should be listening to the words he knew, but he couldn't look away from her. He wanted to take her into his arms and never let go. She was so beautiful... "I do," he said, and he was kissing her before the parson told him to.)_

He drew his hand back, his breathing shaky. This was what he was betting...this was what he was _risking._

He smiled at Sammy. "Okay then," he said. "Let's play."

* * *

The Faceless seemed to be angry and perplexed and that was good. She was aware of their unease, it was the Faceless' own life on their table this time around and she doubted anyone had ever challenged them quite like this before. Not in their own realm. They felt in control here, and even though they must be sure that she and Danny were planning something they couldn't be sure _what._

Wary and uneasy made for a lousy mark. Yes they might be wrongfooted but they needed to be more than that. She couldn't cheat after all. Not with her power and not the human way either. They'd be watching they'd know in a heartbeat and Danny would lose instantly. This wasn't like the last time she'd sat across a card table from the Faceless, when Linus' life had been on the line and a pair of Aces had been all she'd needed. They knew she was here this time and they weren't going to let her get away with anything. They needed to be off guard and emotional. In other words she needed to make them angry. Fortunately that was something she excelled at.

She casually stretched out into the mists and she drew out an ice cold pina colada, just the way Reuben used to serve them in the Xanadu with a slice of pineapple on the side and a cherry on top. Out of sheer perversity, she added a sparkler that crackled away happily never burning any lower. She took a slow sip with the straw and closed her eyes. There was the taste she remembered.

The Faceless were staring at her and she deliberately, sensually, licked her lips. "What's a game of cards without a drink?" she purred.

It tensed and she knew it wasn't the sexuality that disturbed it so much as the decadence. Fall of the Roman Empire time.

"Okay," she said, leaning back in her chair. "Game is Five Card Draw. Aces are high, Jokers are wild, you can buy three new cards on an even bet, dealer sets the breaks. We play until someone's wiped out or one of you concedes. You stand up or leave the table, you've conceded. Now," she went on looking straight at the Faceless, her voice deliberately changing from professional to patronising. "Remember, you can only have five cards at a time and the King – that's the picture of the little man with the 'K' in the corner – is worth more than the Queen – that's – "

" – Enough!" it interrupted harshly and Danny snorted with laughter.

"That's what you were teaching those movie stars?" Danny asked lightly.

Huh. She blinked and shot a quick questioning look, and Danny nodded slightly. So Danny remembered everything. That was...she felt herself smiling almost lost in the simplicity of the knowledge that Danny knew who she was.

"What I was _trying _to teach those movie stars," she corrected easily, and she still had one eye on the Faceless but more than that, she was listening to the world around her gauging its mood. Right now she'd say angry. Angry and frustrated. Just perfect, in fact.

If they lost, Danny would be stripped of everything that made him who he was. His very existence would be unravelled until there was nothing left, until the only evidence that Danny had ever might-have-been would be the howling emptiness in her head.

She picked up the deck and the cards leapt from one hand into another. "Alright then. Let's go."

* * *

Danny couldn't look away.

The cards were alive, dancing through Sammy's hands, vanishing and reappearing by turns as she plucked them out of the air and they tumbled through one another. The cards moved around her hands, falling in four dimensions. It was impossible. It was magic. It was the sexiest thing Danny had ever seen.

He was certain he'd never seen Rusty shuffle cards like that before. He was certain he'd never seen _anyone _shuffle cards like that before.

"I could watch that all day," he said softly, ignoring the presence of the Faceless effortlessly.

She looked up and smiled at him and the cards sang through her fingers.

Five cards fell in front of him, a further five in front of the Faceless. He picked them up to look and kept the easy smile focused on Sammy while his mind raced. A King, a pair of Tens and garbage. Nothing he wanted to trust his life to.

He glanced through the pile of chips consideringly. They were all precious. Might be that there were some memories he'd thought he'd give anything to be rid of – the four hours he'd spent locked in a cell in Belize, listening to Rusty screaming somewhere far away sprang to mind – but even the darkness was part of what made him and he couldn't give it up and he'd never want the Faceless to have it.

He made bets out of scraps and played carefully and across the table the Faceless did the same.

A few hands went by. Danny lost bits and pieces. A date he'd once had with a girl who spent the whole night talking politics. The feeling of leaves underfoot in fall. Every dental appointment he'd ever had. The way ice cream had tasted when he'd been a kid.

He won about as much as he lost and he seized on the little gold scraps of the world he wanted but unless he won it all it was meaningless.

They kept going like this, he couldn't win.

He had to change the game.

It wasn't about the cards...

He grinned at Sammy. "Any chance of some table service, d'you think?"

"You can get it yourself," Sammy told him.

"No he cannot," the Faceless interrupted in a monotone.

Huh. His eyebrows shot up. "Like you did?"

"Like I did," Sammy agreed.

"It is not possible for humans," the Faceless said, a hint of agitation creeping in.

Sammy leaned forwards, looking him straight in the eyes. "Look, nothing here is exactly real the way we'd normally think of it. Things can be changed...created...with enough willpower and imagination. And _you _have endless amounts of both."

"Humans cannot do this," the Faceless snapped, wild and angry.

Danny didn't look at it. All his attention was focused on Sammy. The gentle smile and her eyes absolutely full of confidence and trust in him. The last thing he ever wanted to do was let her down.

Imagination and willpower...? He thought about a glass of whisky. Imagined the rich raw taste, the amber colour, the cool of the tumbler and the sound of the ice cubes clinking against each other. Unconsciously he reached out a hand and his fingers closed around the glass. "Huh."

The smile Sammy was wearing grew a little broader.

He took a sip. Tasted exactly like he'd imagined. "I think a good whisky."

"That is impossible," the Faceless burst out insistently, like it expected the drink to just disappear, like it expected Danny to just start conforming to the rules it understood.

Danny shrugged. Grinned. "I've never really cared much for that word," he said lightly.

"He hasn't," Sammy corroborated.

The Faceless just stared, unsettled and uncertain.

Without looking at his cards again, Danny slid a shining stack of white chips across the table. His first date with Tess. The way Rusty smiled at him first thing in the morning. The brokerage job they'd pulled in Austin, abseiling down the Frost Bank tower in the rain. The night before the Benedict job, playing cards with Rusty, Saul and Reuben, and later, barely able to sleep with the adrenaline and the anticipation and the sheer joie de vivre. Things that _mattered. _Things that he'd never want to lose.

"Your bet," he said, smiling politely.

The Faceless looked from him to the chips for a long moment. Then, staring hard at his face, it pushed another stack of gold chips into the centre of the table. "Call."

He glanced down at his chips again thoughtfully, and casually tossed a handful into the centre of the table. Memories flickered across the edges of his mind. His and Tess' second first anniversary. The feeling of Sammy's hand in his as they ran through the basement. Watching Hitchcock movies with Rusty. Phil Turrentine.

With a careless smile he leaned back in his chair and watched the Faceless. Match him or fold. These were the only options here. And that was one hell of a stake to try and match.

The moment stretched out unbearably and the mists were whispering around the Faceless like it was conferring amongst itself. Eventually it glanced at Sammy who smiled at it, bright and innocent, and it threw its cards down on the table with ill grace.

It said nothing, just stared as Danny pulled the new pile of chips towards him. Gold mixed in with the white, enough that he was clearly winning.

"Show us your cards," the Faceless demanded abruptly.

Danny didn't even consider. "No."

"He doesn't have to," Sammy said firmly. "You wanted that you should have said something when I set out the house rules."

The Faceless nodded curtly, clearly fuming, desperate to know if he was bluffing or not.

They were yet to understand that it didn't matter.

Like he had nothing to lose after all.

* * *

Again and again the cards fell. Sammy watched but Danny barely glanced at them.

Danny wasn't playing poker after all. Danny was playing chess. With poker chips.

She dealt the cards and with every sacrifice of himself Danny offered up, she was screaming inside. She didn't want Danny to give himself up for her. Each new hand brought new hell and she longed to tell Danny that this was enough, that they'd reached the line that shouldn't be crossed.

Of course she didn't. She kept her expression relaxed and unconcerned making sure the Faceless couldn't read _anything _off her. She backed Danny up, no matter what. Hell, that simple truth was practically written right through her.

The Faceless were restless. Frustrated. She could _feel _it whispering through the air, an almost painful pressure bearing down on her. They weren't going to let this carry on forever. She'd told Danny that the Faceless would honour their bet, and maybe that was true, but if they thought they were being tricked...this whole plan might just come tumbling down.

And if that happened, the Faceless would feel they had every right to take it out on Danny, on Tess, on Linus, Saul, Rio, anyone else they thought they might be able to hurt her with. And it would be all her fault. She was the one they wanted. She was the one who'd gone to them for help, knowing there would be a price. Whatever happened, it was down to her.

Danny lost some. Won more. The chips gathered in front of him and dark clouds gathered over the table.

"You certainly do care a lot about ...her...don't you?" the Faceless said at last, its voice soft and cloying.

She tensed immediately. God, she didn't want them talking to Danny. Not about her. Not about anything.

"Mmm," Danny said, not looking at it, sounding bored.

"We are intrigued by how much you are willing to risk for so little benefit," it went on, shuffling its cards slowly. "You have a wife. You have friends. You have a life. You are really prepared to jeopardise all this for..._her?_"

She could see the tension cutting across Danny's shoulders. The anger. And she wanted to speak up, wanted to step in to take the attention away from Danny, but she already knew that would only let them know that they were hurting.

Danny still didn't look up. "No. I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"Even being here is a risk," it commented. "You walked straight into our home. Beings with less..._patience_ might just have obliterated you on sight. Did she even bother to warn you?"

She hadn't. Not really. She'd tried to tell Danny just how dangerous this was, just what they were up against, but he hadn't truly listened.

"We weren't dealing with them," Danny said in a tone of extreme reasonableness, the edge just creeping into his voice. "We were dealing with you."

"Nonetheless, you are here putting yourself in danger. Because of _her._" Its voice was dripping with derision and contempt. "You are going to lose everything. Your wife will be alone. _You_ are going to be ripped out of history. And for what? A spiteful entity who has spent the last twenty three years and nine months manipulating you? Do you really think it's worth it?"

"Danny!" she said sharply, an instant before Danny would have stood up, and she could understand the anger, the impulse to action, but if Danny left the table then they'd _lost. _

Danny glanced sideways at her and nodded sharply, taking a deep breath, and she could read the apology there, the resolution not to let the worst touch them, and still Danny wasn't able to just let it pass.

"Do I think Sammy is worth this?" he asked softly. "No. No, I suppose I don't. Sammy is worth _far _more than this. Rusty has been my best friend for twenty three years. I don't suppose for a second you understand what that means. Just know that there is no one I care about more than Rusty. And there never will be."

There was a painful lump in her throat and she wished Danny hadn't said any of that.

"Rusty Ryan...Sammy Smith..." the Faceless mused slowly. "Do you even truly know who your best friend _is?" _

"Far more than you ever will," Sammy cut in. "Do you want new cards or what?"

"No," it said, smiling with cold satisfaction. "We are quite content with the ones we have. " It fixed its attention on Danny again and right now she couldn't see how to distract it. "_She _is not even really a person, you know," it observed conversationally. "It might look like a woman and it might talk like a woman, but it has no soul the way you do. Really, it is nothing more than an abstract idea that taught itself how to think."

Of course that was true. It had said nothing that she could even attempt to challenge, and yet Danny just grinned and laughed. "You really don't know _any_thing, do you?" He turned and smiled at Sammy. "Two please," he said, and as Sammy passed him his cards their fingertips brushed together in electric reassurance.

"_We_ know nothing?" the figure repeated, its voice shrill and indignant. "We are timeless and unending. We were here for countless eons before you were born and we shall continue long after you are dead. We know more than you can imagine, Danny Ocean. Your affection for your _friend _blinds you to the true nature of the world."

Its feathers were well and truly ruffled.

She smiled calmly. "_Danny _is blind?" she murmured. "You've never even _tried _to take the time to understand the world. He's right. You know _nothing._"

With a look of blind hatred, it threw another handful of gold chips into the middle of the table. "Raise," it said shortly, and a second later Danny followed suit.

She carefully hid the wince. Her opinion, Danny wasn't playing by the odds or even by instinct right now. _That _had been all about the anger, and it was small comfort that she could say the same thing for both of them.

And all she could do was watch and listen.

* * *

The poison was dealt as surely as the cards. Obviously the Faceless had figured out what worked. The stream of insults and doubts were unbearable and unrelenting, and with each new dig at Sammy, at Rusty, at _Them, _Danny found it just a little more difficult to focus.

"She is not truly capable of caring the way you humans are. She is not like you. It is in her nature to be fickle."

He gritted his teeth and stared down at his cards, barely able to see what they were. She _wasn't. _Danny knew who she was.

"After all," it continued. "Consider her reaction when things go wrong. She left you, didn't she? She left you without even your memories."

"You did that," he said immediately, his voice low and furious and he threw his cards down and they weren't enough, and the Faceless pulled bits and pieces of his life towards them. "You _made _her leave."

It almost sounded amused. "Do you think she is so easily controlled then, Danny Ocean? We wonder whether this is the first time she's left you."

Six months he'd spent searching. Time spent alone, not knowing if he'd ever see Rusty again. Rusty had left and he hadn't even said goodbye...

He raised his chin, trying to hide the second of uncertainty. "We here to play or talk?"

Sammy dealt the cards and he didn't look at her, but he could sense the guilt.

"She has left you before, hasn't she?" the Faceless whispered.

"There were reasons," he said shortly. "I understand that." He was shocked to hear the uncertain crack in his own voice.

"You understand that," it repeated sarcastically. "You are so certain of yourself, Danny Ocean. The man most beloved of luck. Tell us. If she is everything you say she is, why did you spend four years in prison?"

It pushed a large pile of chips into the centre, and Danny matched the bet automatically, his mouth dry. He couldn't answer that. It felt like everything he knew was slipping away, just a little.

"It was in her power to stop it, you know," the Faceless added with soft persuasion. "She abandoned you that day."

No. No, that wasn't right. (_Was it?_) It was his own mistake that had sent him to prison. His mistake and a healthy dose of...bad luck.

God. He swallowed hard, his thoughts racing chaotically. He had gone to prison, and Tess had left him, and Rusty hadn't..._could _Rusty have..._why? _

"Danny, don't listen to it," Sammy told him urgently, and he _tried _he really did, but he couldn't stop remembering how it had felt, how alone he'd been and the feeling of abandonment howled through him.

Rusty had let him go to prison? He absorbed the thought numbly.

"Danny," Sammy begged quickly. "Danny, look at me."

Right now he couldn't bear to.

Rusty had let him go to prison. Rusty had let him go to prison and for four years he hadn't even heard from him. What was he to Rusty, really? He remembered Rusty telling him...There'd been others before him. There'd be others after him.

"You are just the latest link in a long line of fleeting amusements," it went on with false sympathy.

Yeah. He could see that now. He was nothing but a tiny cog in luck's plan. A fool, fit to be manipulated, to be tricked into doing her bidding. He was _nothing _to her. Fuck, why was he even doing this? He should leave right now. Let the Faceless win. He could probably talk them into letting him live his life with Tess. That was what he wanted, wasn't it?

"Danny!" Sammy's voice was frightened and pleading but that didn't matter because...because...

This wasn't him.

These were his thoughts, his feeling, but it wasn't _him._

He stared at the fragments of his life that the Faceless were holding, looked at the white chips it had in its hands, the chips it was toying with. The misery he'd felt when Rusty had vanished. The anger and blamed when he'd thought Sammy had chosen to leave him. Doubt and loneliness and betrayal.

His pain.

They were using his pain against him. Planting thoughts in his head, making him think, feel, _doubt. _Making him turn on everything that mattered to him.

Fury roared through him, alive and raw and untameable.

How dare they?

He glanced quickly at Sammy, letting apology and regret show in his eyes, and the forgiveness was instant and unquestioning and the anger matched his own.

How _dare _they?

Everything here was shaped by will and imagination. And like Sammy had told him, he had plenty of both. He thought back to the sensation he'd felt with the glass of whisky, and he carefully reached out, envisioning the threads of the bastard's influence, and with a violent gesture he broke them all.

"Get the hell out of my head," he said, his voice clear and icy.

"How did you."

"Did you."

"Do that."

"How did you do that?" the Faceless demanded, anger and shock cutting through its voice. "That is not possible."

Without even thinking about it, Danny reached out and took Sammy's hand, sharing strength and love and reconnection. "Turns out my loyalty is stronger than you thought. You can't break it."

"For a moment there, we almost did." The Faceless was speaking only to Sammy. "We want you to remember that."

"That isn't what I'll remember," Sammy said steadily, squeezing Danny's hand tenderly. "Like you said. It's not possible. You think that doesn't matter?"

"I thought you said you didn't cheat," Danny asked softly.

It stared at him with cold, furious contempt. "We broke no rules."

Broke no rules? They'd been in his _head. _

"Technically they're right, Danny," Sammy cut in softly. "'s not covered by the rules of the game. Sorry."

"Still cheating," he said softly, his eyes fixed on the Faceless. "Doesn't matter how you dress it up, you're a cheat."

The Faceless glared right back at him, hatred in every aspect of its being as it threw its cards down on the table. Ten high straight.

Danny smiled and laid his cards down. "Heart flush," he murmured. "I think I'm winning."

With a grimace the Faceless thrust another handful of golden chips across the table. He added them to the pile in front of him and turned to smile at Sammy. He _was _winning, but right now all he wanted was the opportunity to promise Sam he was himself again, that he knew her, that he trusted her.

"Oh, and here," the Faceless added spitefully. "Mustn't forget this one."

It threw one lone red chip straight towards him, and reflexively his hand shot up to catch it.

As his fingers closed around it the memory rose up around him, engulfing him.

_Coldness surrounded him, inside and out. He was a mist-like awareness, spread throughout the room, aware of everything._

_He knew this room._

_This was in the Bellagio. The room with no cameras where he'd waited for Bruiser, and now he was looking at Sammy, huddled on the floor, her face smashed almost past recognition, her body bruised and cut and beaten, her arm at an unnatural angle, her once-white dress torn and bloody._

_Sammy! Oh, god, Sammy. He should be feeling...he _knew _how he should be feeling, but instead there was the chill of satisfaction._

_As he watched, Terry walked into the room and stood over her, smiling coldly down at her. "Well? Have you learned anything from this experience?" _

_The men on either side of him sniggered shortly and Danny could see the red splashed on their shirts, the split knuckles. They had done this. They had...oh, Sammy. He begged her to look at him, begged her to see him, but he wasn't here and she was looking at Terry._

"_Oh yes," she said fervently. "Yes, I've learned my lesson. I'll never wear white after Labour day again." _

_Somewhere, Danny winced as Terry brought his cane down hard across her face. "It may have escaped your attention, but you're in a lot of trouble right now."_

"_No! Really?" she answered after a second, and Danny could hear the pain she was hiding, and the feeling of pleasure that suffused him was _obscene. "_You know, your problem Terry? You don't have a sense of __humour. We should work on that...let's try this. So there are these two goldfish in a tank, right?" Terry brought his cane down on her shoulder, __and then again across her breasts and she gasped, her fist clenching uncontrollably. "And one of them...and one of them turns to the other and says..." _

_Terry raised the cane high over his head and slammed it down on her broken arm. _

_Danny heard the splinter of bone with a rush of joy. _

_Sammy screamed. _

"_And says..." she said, rolling onto her side after a long, long moment, her voice muffled. "Do you know how to drive this thing?" _

_Terry permitted himself a smile. "That's funny. You're a funny girl."_

"_Wouldn't have pegged you as a Barbara Streisand fan, Napoleon," Sammy said dizzily, her voice thick and hoarse. "Suppose people can surprise you sometimes." _

_Terry nodded to the man beside him. "Work her over some more before you dump her. Make sure she understands the consequences." _

"_And sometimes people do exactly what you expect," Sammy muttered._

_The men closed around her._

_Danny felt the sense of peaceful satisfaction._

The memory burned away and the emotions – _his _emotions, his real emotions – came flooding in. Sammy...oh, god, Sammy. Pain. So much pain. And she'd been so alone. And he'd watched and he'd _felt..._he hadn't been able to help. He hadn't even _tried. _And she'd been hurting so much. God, the blood. The _screaming._

(_The cane smashed across Sammy's face._)

The sight of her lying on the ground, broken and bleeding and still so stupidly defiant, was etched into his mind. He couldn't stop seeing and he was shaking. He was barely aware of Sammy calling abruptly for a break, because that wasn't what mattered...he needed...

(_The smell of copper hung in the air._)

He was on his feet and Sammy was there, holding onto him, and he clung to her desperately as she pulled him away, away from the cold whispers and angry protests, and the mists had vanished or solidified and somehow there was a door and he was bundled through it.

(_Danny rejoiced as Sammy threw her head back and _screamed._)_

Nausea overwhelmed him and somehow they were in a restroom and he fell to his knees in front of the toilet and retched miserably.

Sammy had been...and he'd been...oh, _God. _

* * *

Sammy watched as the physical reaction rippled through Danny. She hadn't lived the memory the way Danny had, but she knew what it was, and she could imagine what he'd seen, what he'd _felt. _She rested her hand on Danny's back, rubbing soothingly, trying to offer any comfort she could. "'s okay," she murmured. "It wasn't you. Just their memory."

Danny sat back, wiping at his mouth, and without even thinking about it, Sammy handed him a glass of water and he gulped at it gratefully. "They hurt you," he said, reaching out blindly and she took his hand gladly, letting him offer the comfort for pain that had long since passed and hoping – desperately hoping – that he took some comfort in return.

She sighed and told him the truth. "I never wanted you to see that. I didn't see it coming. Sorry, Danny." The Faceless hadn't let a single one of the chips that represented _its _life go. She'd never considered that it might just up and give Danny one. She'd still been caught up in the anger over it creeping inside Danny's head, and she'd been too slow to realise it had moved on to a new plan, a new pain. Damn it, this was her fault.

"He _hurt_ you," Danny said again and that wasn't just about the Faceless, or even just about the pain.

It had been Terry, after all. Terry standing over her, hurtingher with that righteous little smirk on his face. That was what Danny had seen. And it was going to take a lot for Danny to get past that.

But he had to. Because right now, Terry didn't even appear on their list of problems. "We don't..." She took a deep breath. Telling Danny that they didn't have time for this was never going to work. "It was ages ago," she tried.

"Two months is ages now?" Danny demanded. "You're still not even healed." As though to prove his point he pulled up her sleeve but the skin beneath was perfect and unblemished.

"I healed the moment we stepped through the mirror," she explained quietly. "See? No harm, no foul."

Danny stared at her. "You know it doesn't work that way."

Yeah. She knew. It never worked that way. Brutality didn't stop mattering after the injuries had faded, no matter how the healing came about. She drew her hand away. "We have - "

" - not more important," Danny cut in quickly. "The Faceless used the memory, Sam. It's _their _memory. And they saw my reaction. You think they're not gonna dig deeper?"

"And you want to go after Terry," she said, tilting her head back against the wall, because Danny's anger was white hot and immediate.

Danny didn't bother trying to deny it. "He doesn't get to do that," he said simply.

For a long moment Sammy just looked at him. Honestly, she found Danny's reaction a little more reassuring than she should. After the Bellagio...these last two months of pain and healing, she'd felt so alone. "I told you most of it. There was this girl. She had this new system for blackjack. Works too, if you can do rocket science in your head." Danny raised an eyebrow and Sammy grinned. "Not literally."

Danny nodded. "And they made you change - "

" - yes," she said, and she had to explain, had to try and make Danny see. "What you saw? I _know _how you feel, Danny, but I can survive it. Rio...she's twenty two. She's never been in danger in her life. What Terry's people would have done...it would have destroyed her. Because of me."

"Because of - " Danny started, already shaking his head and she knew what he was going to say, but he was _wrong. _

" - But if I let them make me do that once, I've already lost where it matters," she said quietly.

He could hear the truth in her voice. "So - "

" - so Terry's people caught me cheating," she agreed. "He took exception to it. He had me beaten up and thrown out, and the Faceless were watching. That's about it."

There was a pause, and Danny looked round slowly, and she knew what he was thinking.

"They can't hear us now," she assured him. "I'm making sure of that. 's really bad manners. This is their home. When we get back, they're gonna be even more pissed off."

Danny wasn't listening. He was staring round the room with a look of horror and revulsion. "Here?" he demanded.

Sammy looked round at the restroom and winced. Off the main casino floor of the Bellagio. "Sorry. First place I thought of." She dragged her hand down her face and the world _breathed _and the bathroom faded and was replaced by a familiar bar.

"This was where we first met," Danny said wonderingly, looking at the faded bar stools, the split floor planks, the battered piano with the sawn-off shotgun lying on the lid. Only difference was the lack of people.

"Yeah," she agreed. Still the first place she thought of.

He smiled at her, tenderness in his eyes. "Thought I was supposed to be the sentimental one."

"'s not a unique trait," she said lightly, and he reached out and carefully took her by the hand again. She looked at him carefully. "I'm fine, Danny.

"I wasn't there," he said softly, guilt and regret and sorrow in his voice and for a long time they just sat in silence together.

"I want - " Danny began, eventually, his voice dark and thick.

She didn't let him finish. Wasn't like she didn't understand. " - this isn't about revenge, Danny," she said. "You start trying to hurt them, you could lose..." Everything. Danny could lose everything.

By the look on Danny's face he already knew that. And after all, _everything _didn't just include his own life. "Doesn't stop me wanting it."

"We need to get back soon," she said, looking towards the door. "They're going to get impatient and if they get angry enough they'll call the whole thing off." She hesitated. "I won't be able to call a break like this again. They're not gonna stand for it."

"That's okay," he said, and he sounded so tired.

Impulsively she leaned forwards, pressing her lips against his, offering all the strength and determination and sheer _belief _she had.

She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

They weren't going to lose now.

* * *

The door vanished as they walked through it swirling back into the mists. Danny didn't even blink. The scenery wasn't exactly important. The Faceless was standing at the head of the table, regarding them dispassionately.

Anger welled up inside him all over again, and that was hardly unexpected. He managed it, ruthlessly rode it out until it was reformed into something cold and hard and merciless.

They had manipulated him, manipulated both of them. They'd stolen Rusty and watched as Sammy screamed, and they'd enjoyed every second of it. And he knew exactly what they deserved. But Sammy was right; this wasn't about revenge. The stakes were so much higher than that.

"Breaks over," Sammy said shortly, walking past him back to the table and lounging back in the seat like she didn't have a care in the world. "Best take a seat, gentlemen, we aren't going anywhere for a while."

"We did not agree to this break," the Faceless commented. "We feel this game is invalid."

"But you didn't challenge me when I said the dealer calls the breaks," Sammy answered, regarding it evenly. "You really had any grounds to object, you'd have complained when I called the break. Not now. So how about you stop wasting time?"

It turned its head sharply and Danny could see the anger it was trying to hide. "We hope that you are quite recovered, Danny Ocean?" it asked, its voice dripping with mocking solicitude.

He inclined his head. "Oh, yes. Sorry to disappoint you."

Thing was, it _was _disappointed, he could see that. What had it wanted? Him offguard and emotional, ready to make mistakes? Or had it just been an impulsive decision, a way to hurt him when its plan to control him failed.

Its eyes were on the sole red chip on his side of the table. He smiled and let his hand linger over it as Sammy dealt the cards, and when his hand was complete he still barely glanced at it. "You know," he began conversationally, after the first round of bets. "I've seen inside your head now. I'd like to thank you for that. It was very...enlightening."

For the shortest of seconds, it froze. Then it looked over at him. "Did you enjoy watching Sammy Smith be beaten?" it enquired.

"Of course not," he said immediately, suppressing the memory . "But you did."

It bristled. "We do not enjoy things the way you - "

" - bullshit," he commented amiably. "I've been in your head. And you know what? I understand your satisfaction just fine. Satisfaction and enjoyment and glee. That's what you like, isn't it? Watching people hurting. Manipulating them into hurting themselves or each other."

"We do not need to explain ourselves to you," it said harshly. "You would not understand in any event."

"Oh, but I do," he said softly. "You're small. That's what I learned from your memory. You're small and petty and very, very _human_."

He kept his eyes fixed on it, let it see the truth and it looked away from him sharply, violently throwing more gold chips into the middle of the table.

They played hand after hand, and Danny barely noticed the time that was passing. All his attention was on the Faceless, and the chips and the cards. There might as well not be a world out there, and in a very real way, there wasn't.

He was winning.

Little by little, piece by piece, his life – _their _life – piled up in front of him and he held onto it, not risking a golden single chip. The mists shifted uneasily around them and he didn't need to look at Sammy to know he had them worried.

He lost some too, of course. Not every hand went his way, and he watched his life drift away, chip by chip. Things that mattered. Hell, everything mattered.

The first time he ever met Reuben, nineteen and confident and convinced that he could persuade the rich casino owner to cheat him out of his grandmother's antique watch. His high school girlfriend and a long summer of roses, love and laughter. The night his father died,the smell of dying flowers, the desperate, crushing loneliness, the wish that someone – anyone – would come for him.

All gone forever.

The Faceless kept chipping away at him, of course. At both of them.

"Do you really think yourself so special, Danny Ocean?" it demanded as it lost again. "You aren't the first human she's been infatuated with, you know. You are the latest in a long line."

They were searching for his insecurities again. Working on driving a wedge between him and Sammy. Wasn't going to happen. They weren't getting inside his head again, literally or figuratively.

"You really don't have the first clue how love works, do you?" he said, shaking his head. "Like I said. Small. And petty."

"Love," it repeated slowly. "Very well. If you wish to put it in these terms...do you really think that you are the first human she's _loved._ Did she ever tell you about a man named Levi? She actually _married _him."

He looked up from his cards quickly, looking at Sammy, and he could see the shock and grief in her eyes and he wished he could make it better.

"Yes, she told me," he said softly. "A good man." A man Sammy had loved, long ago, so much that she'd married him. Danny didn't need to have met him to know he was a good man. And they were using him to try and hurt.

More fuel for the flames, but the anger burned ice cold and Danny raised the stakes again. And again. And again, until the Faceless were staring at the small pile of gold and white chips in front of them and the stake on the table.

There wasn't enough for it to match him. Not without cutting into its own life. For the first time, it would have to bet its memories or soul or whatever, and it was shocked and uncertain and the mist was still and heavy around them.

He let the smile spread across his face and he leaned back in his chair and waited. Truth was, he was betting nearly everything too. If it called and he lost right now, he'd be all but wiped out. And maybe he could claw his way back, but he'd never get a chance like this again, and most likely the Faceless would take everything. But the Faceless could lose everything too, and it was still hesitating, its hand hovering over its chips uncertainly.

"Gonna have to hurry you," Sammy said disinterestedly. "You betting or not?"

It glared at her. "You cheated," it snapped angrily. "You must have cheated for your human."

Sammy's eyes were hard. "You've been watching me every step of the way. You see me cheat?"

Its mouth clamped shut.

"You've come closer to cheating than me or Danny," she added softly. "That little mind control bit? That's low, even for you. You really thought you couldn't win any other way? Like Danny said. Petty and small."

"We do not lose," it said furiously.

"Then bet," Sammy told it instantly. "You're so confident, put something that matters to you on the line. Make it count." The smile was sudden and vicious and Sammy wasn't even looking his way. "I fucking dare you."

The Faceless looked away from her and there was a long moment when everything was hanging by a thread.

"Perhaps, Danny Ocean, it is time to discuss terms," it said at last.

_Yes. _Inside, he was rejoicing. He inclined his head. "What do you have in mind?"

"What?" Sammy demanded loudly. "No! Danny, don't let them off the hook now. Take the bastards for everything."

Oh, he wanted to. He really, really wanted to. Sammy was the one who said no. The voice of reason in this unreasonable mess. But her apparent thirst for blood was enough to push the Faceless further towards the idea of compromise. Something _safe _and something that would anger Sammy. It could look on this as a draw, or even as a victory if it chose. Not about revenge, after all.

"You walk away with your life," it said slowly. "Tess Ocean and...Rusty Ryan both live. That is what you want, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Tess and Rusty live," he agreed. "So do I. And you swear that you don't come after any of us or any of our friends...past, present, future, whatever."

It looked at him consideringly. "How long for?"

Danny frowned. "Forever," he said. Otherwise there was no point. They'd just be leaving trouble for later.

"Unacceptable," it said at once.

"How about this?" Sammy cut in. "All Danny's terms stand. Except you swear not to come after _Rusty. _Not me."

"That is...acceptable," the Faceless agreed slowly.

"Like hell!" Danny objected. He understood the difference immediately. Once Rusty was...in some future time, someone else would take Rusty's place. And the Faceless would be free to go after them as much as they pleased. And that wasn't acceptable to Danny at all. Not like he truly felt any different about Sammy than he had about Rusty, and he seriously doubted he'd feel any less for whoever else Rusty might be. Except, of course, this would most likely be after he was dead. Hell, some part of him suspected that might just be the trigger. And that was even worse, because Rusty would be _alone._

"Sam, you can't - " he argued softly.

" - forever is a long time to insist on, Danny," she said gently.

He turned to the Faceless. "Look at what's on the table," he demanded. "You'd rather give all that to me than promise to leave Sammy alone? _Really?" _

It gazed at him impassively.

"Now that's _very _human," he said bitterly. "Shortsighted and stupid." He took a deep breath. "_Tell _me. Have you given the slightest thought to what Sammy's gonna do to you if you _win?" _

The mists suddenly drew back, rearing up, and there were shapes flickering across it, dark echoing voices, shadows whispering to each other.

He didn't react. He just waited.

And after a long, long moment, the Faceless looked at Sammy. "We are...willing to agree not to retaliate if you will agree to the same terms."

Sammy glanced at him and he nodded slowly. That sounded as good as they were going to get.

"You stay clear of me, I'll stay clear of you," Sammy promised lightly.

"Very well," the Faceless said, sounding relieved. "We are agreed." It threw its cards down. Danny didn't look. He _really _didn't want to know if he could have beaten it or not. That was the sort of thought that drove men mad.

The Faceless stretched out its hand and all the little golden chips floated into its hand, coalescing back into one, shining chip. "Here," it said abruptly, throwing it to Danny.

He caught it. Nothing happened. "What - "

" - here," Sammy said, reaching out her hand.

"Wait!" the Faceless said quickly. "That chip. Return it to us. Please."

It was looking at the red chip still sitting with Danny. The memory it had forced on him. Sammy, being tortured by Terry. He looked at the Faceless evenly. "Not part of our deal," he said simply. He wouldn't let them have that memory back. After all. He knew how much they'd enjoyed it."It stays with me."

Sammy looked like she wanted to argue, but she caught Danny's eye and and kept silent.

He'd keep their memory. And he was walking away with most of his. And the ones he was leaving behind...he looked at the little dots of white abandoned on the other side of the table. The odd pieces of his life he'd lost, and right now all the memories were fresh in his head and he couldn't imagine that he'd ever forget.

"It's time," Sammy said softly, laying a hand on his arm.

Danny looked at her for a long second. In a moment, everything would change, and he'd never see her again.

"Don't think like that," she murmured. "It's not like that."

It felt a little like that. He reached out and stroked a hand through her hair and she smiled and kissed him lightly on the lips.

He dropped the chip into her hand.

The world breathed.

Everything went white.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Final chapter! Hope you've enjoyed this fic. I said it would be about seven chapters, and it's been ten. Feel that's not _too _bad. In the scheme of things. And further happy Advent Calenderness.**

* * *

The light faded and for the briefest of eternities, Danny was surrounded by the feeling of nothing, and then they were standing back in the hotel room and Rusty's hand was flat on the mirror, and he watched the surface ripple and close over as Rusty took his fingers away.

Rusty. Danny was looking at Rusty. For the first time in over a year, and he was seized by the longing, the need and he reached out desperately and pulled Rusty into his arms, and the feeling of Rusty, warm and real against him was sheer relief and exhilaration,and Rusty returned the embrace every bit as fiercely and Danny couldn't be certain that neither of them was crying.

"Did it work?" he asked presently.

"Yeah," Rusty nodded, then looked at him quickly. "You want to call - "

" - yes," he agreed with an almost apologetic look, because he believed Rusty one hundred percent but he still had to hear her voice.

Rusty took a few discreet steps away, making himself busy going through the mini-bar while Danny dialled.

"Hello," Tess said after a moment, and Danny felt another surge of relief. She was fine. They'd really _won._

"Hey, Tess," he said tenderly. "Just phoning to see how you are."

"I'm fine," she said, sounding slightly puzzled. "You just called this morning, Danny, is everything alright?"

"More than alright," he said immediately. "I can't want to talk to you more than once a day?"

"Of course you can," she returned. "Are you _sure_ everything's alright though?"

He hoped so. "Yeah." He swallowed, suddenly wondering. "Just hanging out with Rusty."

"Rusty?" She sounded surprised and delighted. "He's alright?"

"He's fine," Danny assured her.

"Yes..." she said, the frown obvious in her voice. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I asked like that."

Yeah. Danny did. But Tess remembered who Rusty was, that was the main thing, and after a few more moments of tender conversation he said goodbye and hung up.

Rusty was sprawled on the sofa, glass in hand, and a second later Danny joined him. "Tess remembers you."

"Everyone should," Rusty nodded, passing Danny a glass of whisky.

He drank it and stared blindly ahead of him. "I cheated on her," he said hollowly. "She forgave me."

Rusty made an abortive gesture, as though he was going to take Danny's hand but thought better of it. "I'm sorry, Danny," he said in a low voice. "I should never have let that happen. You know I don't - "

" - I know," he cut in quickly. "'s not what we're about." That had been all about the need and the loneliness, on both sides. He looked at Rusty. "That was when I remembered you. If you'd just walked away then - "

" - like you said," Rusty interrupted. "I'd never have been able to stay away completely. Too many things that could go wrong."

Yeah. Danny could believe that. And the together-but-not-together would have continued to torture both of them, and maybe things would never have come to a head. Maybe he'd have lived the rest of his life without remembering, with nothing more than the constant nagging feeling that something was missing. He didn't think he'd ever be happy living like that. "It shouldn't have happened," he said.

"I know," Rusty said, his voice pained. "I - "

" - But that doesn't mean I regret it," Danny said firmly. He regretted hurting Tess. Hated himself for the betrayal and the weakness, but he didn't regret the moment of closeness with Rusty...Sammy.

"It's never gonna happen again," Rusty stated.

"No," Danny agreed. "But in the circumstances..." He never wanted Rusty to be alone.

Rusty looked at him anxiously. "You know, I didn't choose to...be her in order to seduce you or anything, right?"

Danny almost choked. "No," he said after a second. "No, I know you didn't." But now he came to think of it, "Why did you - "

" - wanted something different," Rusty said with a shrug.

"Does it feel strange?" Danny asked curiously.

"Going to miss the hair," Rusty said contemplatively, running a hand through his. He brightened suddenly. "Think I could - "

" - no!" Danny interrupted hastily, before Rusty got any ideas. "You want to give Linus a heart attack? Don't you think he's going to be confused enough?"

Rusty grinned and for a while they sat in silence. After a few moments, he became aware that Rusty was looking at him.

"What?" he said, without looking round.

"What they said..." Rusty began, with uncharacteristic hesitation.

They'd said a lot of things. But Danny knew what he meant. "Wasn't true," he said immediately. "I _know_it wasn't true. They were using my..._insecurities..._" He spat the word out, because they shouldn't have been able to play him like that, no matter what strange power they were using, the doubts shouldn't have been there for them to take advantage of. "I don't doubt you, Rusty. And I'm sorry."

There was a long moment of silence and, frowning, Danny opened his eyes and Rusty had shifted away from him minutely and was staring at the floor. "It wasn't true," he agreed in a whisper. "But it wasn't exactly not true. I didn't _let_you go to prison, Danny. If I'd known that was gonna happen..."

The guilt and misery in his voice was rich and aching, and Danny didn't even hesitate, leaning close and pressing his shoulder against Rusty's. "I don't doubt you, Rus'," he said again softly.

"'s not like I can tell the future," Rusty said, not looking at him. "Not while I'm human at least. But sometimes I have...'s like another set of instincts. Feelings, to act on. Just before you...went away...I got this idea like you'd be in danger if I stuck around. So I went to England to see Bash. And when I came back..." When he'd come back, Danny had been in prison. And if he'd never went away, maybe, just maybe, Rusty would have been able to keep him out of prison. There was no doubt it was a near-certainty in Rusty's mind. "I didn't know that's what was going to happen, Danny." His voice cracked."I didn't _know._I'm sorry, Danny. I'm so fucking sorry."

There was another long silence. Danny took a deep breath. "You were trying to protect me?" he said at last, his voice barely recognisable.

Rusty winced. "Yeah," he agreed hoarsely. "And I did a lousy job of it."

That wasn't the whole story. "You ever figure out what would have happened?"

"No," Rusty said almost at once, and Danny could hear the evasion.

He turned his head and looked.

Rusty looked away. Closed his eyes. "While you were gone, there was...if you'd been there, you would've done the same thing. You would've had to. Only it all went bad, and I got tracked back home and..." He shrugged and Danny got the point. If Danny had been there, they both would have got tracked, and they'd have found Danny as easily as they'd have found Rusty, and more than that, because Danny didn't live alone and they would have found _Tess_.

And they had found Rusty. Danny reached out and squeezed his hand urgently. "They hurt you?"

"No," Rusty said after the smallest pause. "No. It didn't hurt a bit."

And that was absolute truth and the grief tore through Danny at the implication. "They killed you."

Rusty still wouldn't look at him. "Doesn't count if no one sees," he said simply.

In a heartbeat, Danny's arms were around him like he never wanted to let go, and there wasn't even a question of forgiveness. Maybe Rusty could have protected him from prison and maybe he couldn't. But the point was that there had been death and Danny hadn't been there. And it did count. It did _matter._

"You should have told me," he said simply. Not like he wouldn't have listened if Rusty had said that he had a feeling they were in danger. Not like he wouldn't have been just as anxious to find a way to keep them both alive and out of the pen.

"Before I knew you knew," Rusty pointed out.

Danny nodded. "This time wasn't," he said softly. Rusty could have told them _some_thing. "Don't ever do that again."

"It was for Tess," Rusty reminded him, a sharp edge to his voice. "You think I ever wanted you to face that choice?"

"It wasn't your choice to make," Danny answered immediately.

"Everything is _our_ - "Rusty began and stopped all at once.

Danny grinned humourlessly. "Exactly," he said. Everything was supposed to be _their_choice. "Maybe together we could've worked something out from the beginning. Stopped this year ever happening."

Rusty sighed. "Maybe we could've, but maybe we _couldn't._Maybe this would've worked out worse. They wouldn't be interested in making a deal with you, Danny. It was always me they wanted to hurt. I walked in there a year ago figuring they'd ask me for a favour. Something distasteful. Something I'd never want to do. And I knew I'd do whatever they asked, I just didn't want you to feel like you were asking me. I didn't want you to choose, Danny. That was my decision."

"We back to you not thinking of me as an equal?" he asked softly.

Rusty looked at him. "No. Because you'd have done the same thing and don't even try to deny it."

He didn't. "Don't ever do that again," he requested softly. "Please."

"Here's hoping I never need to," Rusty said with a sigh.

Sounded good to Danny. He sure as hell never wanted to go through another year like that again. And he _never_wanted to lose Rusty again. He turned to look at Rusty for a long, long moment, drinking in ever last detail of _here_and _real_and _his._

There was an unexpected knocking at the door, and with a shrug, Danny stood up to get it.

Reuben and Linus were waiting outside and Linus had a bandage prominently on his forehead.

Danny stood back to let them in. "That was quick," he remarked, and he saw Rusty's minute head shake a fraction of a second too late.

"We've been gone four hours," Linus said, eyeing him strangely.

Ah, well. He grinned. "Really? Must've got...distracted." Linus grew wide-eyed and Reuben snorted with laughter. "How are you feeling, kid?" Danny asked seriously.

"Fine," Linus shrugged. "It's just a very minor concussion, the doctor said."

"Good," Rusty said. "You hit your head pretty hard."

"Yeah..." Linus shuffled his feet, looking at Rusty awkwardly for a long moment, with a mix of confusion, discomfort and just the barest hint of terror. "Did I...I mean, I didn't _really_hit on you, did I?"

Yep. He'd been right. Linus was _plenty_confused enough.

Reuben was laughing again. Danny wasn't exactly sure that was helpful.

Rusty grinned. "I didn't take it personally," he assured Linus.

"Oh, God." Linus stared blankly and Danny figured there was a chance that they'd finally broken him. And this wasn't fair, because after all Linus had been looking at Sammy, not Rusty. On the other hand... "You just asked him to dinner," he said brightly. "It's not like you got hot and heavy."

"Oh, God," Linus said again, staring wildly between him and Rusty. "You know I didn't...I mean, I'm not even..."

"'s okay, Linus," Rusty cut in, and it was debatable whether he was taking pity or if he just didn't want Linus thinking too hard about what he remembered. "Like I said. You hit your head pretty hard."

"Right." Linus didn't exactly convinced.

Reuben was frowning. "So you guys have made up, right?"

Danny ignored the jolt of pain. Funny. Earlier, he'd been furious to think that Sammy had been messing with their friends' memories. Now he was conspiring to do the exact same thing. "Yeah," he said easily. "Was nothing."

The frown grew a little deeper. "It's been going on for months though, right? Doesn't sound like nothing."

"We're fine," they said in unison, and that seemed to go some way towards allaying suspicion. He supposed an argument was the most rational explanation for why Rusty hadn't been around the past year. And probably people would be quicker to seize on it if everyone didn't know they never argued.

"We're glad you're okay, kid," Danny said into the silence. "Why don't you go and get some - "

" - Benedict beat you up," Reuben said suddenly, staring at Rusty, horror dawning in his voice. It was like he'd just remembered something that had been edging round his mind. "Jesus, Rusty, I'd heard the rumours. I don't know why I didn't put it together."

Danny winced. Of course Reuben would have heard about Sammy. Reuben heard about _everything_that happened in Vegas. And now that knowledge was being translated and Reuben was left with the idea that he'd heard that Rusty had been hurt and he'd done _nothing._And that wasn't the way Reuben _ever_worked, and by the look on his face, he was having a hard time dealing.

Didn't exactly help to consider that somewhere Terry was sitting remembering exactly what he'd done and how it had felt. Danny could picture the look on his face. He could only hope that Terry realised now that there were going to be _consequences._He hoped Terry was good and scared. He should be.

"Wasn't a big thing, Reuben," Rusty lied reassuringly.

In Danny's head the memory of Sammy lying bleeding on the floor played over again.

"Wait, this actually happened?" Linus exclaimed. "For real?"

"Way I heard, he broke your arm," Reuben said, staring hard. "Personally."

"Technically it was already..." Rusty broke off. "Look, he caught me cheating. It wasn't like it was unprovoked."

Linus blinked. "He caught you cheating?"

In other circumstances, Danny might have been amused at the fact that Rusty getting caught was apparently so far out of Linus' view of how the world should work.

"I let him catch me," Rusty explained. "There was this girl and...never mind. Point is, it was necessary. So forget about it."

"Forget about it?" Reuben repeated, sounding scandalised. "You think there's a hope in hell that's going to happen? So maybe I don't know what's been going on the past year, but I know Benedict's going down."

Rusty turned and caught Danny's eye, but Danny just smiled coldly.

Terry was going to pay.

* * *

It was late and Rusty leaned on the balcony railing and gazed out over Las Vegas. Felt good to be here. To be _him._For the first time in a year, he was truly happy.

He heard the balcony door slide open behind him and a second later Danny joined him. He didn't look round but he smiled and they stood in silence and watched the lights below.

"I remember when this was a staging post on the trail West," Rusty said. "A couple of wooden buildings, lot of people looking to build a new life. At night you could see the candlelight from across the desert."

Danny tilted his head towards him but said nothing.

"First place on the Strip was El Rancho," he remembered. "Right over there. 1941, I lived there for a year. Organised crime was just starting to take an interest."

"Town's changed," Danny commented quietly.

"On the surface anyway," he said. The spirit of the town never changed. "Didn't come back for a couple decades or so, but even then it didn't _feel_any different." He smiled, remembering. "That was the first time I met Reuben, too. He was working as a cashier in the Desert Inn. Just a kid, but he was bright and sharp, and him and me ran rings round this group of corrupt undercover cops for _months._We sicced 'em onto the competition and walked away clean, with the cash. And Reuben wound up a floor manager."

He could feel Danny watching him, but when he turned his head, Danny had already looked away.

"First time I met Reuben..." Danny began, and paused, his voice suddenly uncertain. "First time I met Reuben was during a craps game. I was shooting double sixes. He straightened me out."

Rusty didn't say anything. He knew the truth, after all. All the things Danny had given up for him. This was the cost of their happiness, and he was left trying to live with that. He closed his eyes and hid the truth from Danny. Sometimes, it was better not to know.

"Can't imagine Reuben as a kid," Danny added after a moment.

"Everyone starts out that way," he said stretching his arms across the railing.

"Except you," Danny said quietly.

"Except me," he agreed.

For a while there was silence, apart from the fireworks exploding over the Stratosphere."

"Were you..." Danny started, and stopped, shaking his head.

Rusty turned to look at him. "What?"

Danny sighed and carried on staring out over the city. "Were you alone? Back in El Rancho."

"I had friends," he said, thinking back to days without bright lights, when poker was played in dusky back rooms right along side those dealing in booze and drugs and guns, and the long con was the best game in town. "No one like you though." But then, there had never been anyone like Danny.

"They were right about one thing," Danny said, leaning on the railing heavily. "This is all fleeting."

They'd said that Danny was just the latest in a long line. One more infatuation. One more person that he would love and leave and forget.

"Don't be an idiot," Danny said softly. "You don't forget. You _never_forget."

He watched the lights spread out below them. So many people walking these streets. So many lives burning brighter than the city around them. But even the brightest fire burned out eventually.

Danny shone with a splendour he'd never known before. Even after all these years, sometimes he was still dazzleblind.

"One day I'll die," Danny whispered. "And you'll be alone."

_(The brightest fire...)_

For a moment, it seemed as though all the lights in Las Vegas dimmed.

"Don't stay alone, Rus'," Danny went on, looking straight at him, his eyes bright and fierce and pleading. "When I'm gone, live. For me."

One day Danny would die. And he would be alone. And nothing would ever burn so bright again.

He reached out and took Danny's hand and the stars shone down, just for them.


End file.
